


P versus NP

by beastofthesky



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Chorus Civil War, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Project Freelancer, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:16:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofthesky/pseuds/beastofthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Or: the solution and the solving are separate creatures; without the journey, there is no destination.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>"For their purposes, the Project is done, over with, and taken care of.”</p>
<p>“Not for my purposes,” the Meta snarls back, louder than Wash has heard him in years. “You got your revenge. I didn’t.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	P versus NP

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for all the interest in this WiP! It’s been an eon and a half (real life stuff really got to me), but here’s a legit update: the first third-ish of the fic, more or less. Full disclosure, I have no idea when the rest will be done, but it’s getting there. Small edits are also likely as I keep picking at this chunk.
> 
> Content warnings:  
> \- discussion of mental health issues (panic attacks, nightmares, anxiety, disordered sleeping)  
> \- canon-typical violence, including injuries/hospital setting (rating is for violence and language)  
> \- light alcohol use
> 
> EDIT: I've upped the rating; I feel like between the violence and mental health issues - especially in conjunction with each other - it deserves that M.

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
**To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield**.”

_ulysses | tennyson_

 

 

Wash hates the whole fading-into-consciousness thing. All of that twilight stage stuff? Yeah, never been as cool as it’d seemed in the blockbuster vids he loved as a kid.

_Christ_. Well, if he’s in pain, he’s not dead. He can feel all of his limbs, so that’s a plus; he’s got a few places that feel bruised to hell and back, but his _head_. His head is fucking _killing_ him. God knows Wash is used to headaches, but this feels like an injury, and that’s probably worth some concern.

He shifts gears to catalogue his memories and remembers gunfire, the extremely specific kind of adrenaline rush that hits in a firefight, Sarge getting hit with a concussive round, Lopez getting taken out, Felix and Grif and Simmons and Tucker and Caboose heading into the caves, Freckles in his final moments, a damn sharp pain at the back of his head.

Awesome.

He groggily opens his eyes to see that his HUD is on (good, that’s good, that means everything is working) and showing only that he’s got a fading concussion, but there’s a blip on his radar that––

“Wash."

Impossible.

"You’re awake.”

He’s on his feet instantly.

This is fucking _impossible_. His concussion must be worse than his HUD says because he _has_ to be hallucinating this. He doesn’t even know where to _begin_ processing what the fuck he’s looking at.

“Move. Need to get clear.”

“What the _fuck_ –”

“ _Move_.”

“Look, I’m not going _anywhere–_ ”

“Quiet.” A quick 360-degree check, and then Wash gets a knife shoved handle-first into his hand. “Want to get shot, left in a ditch?” Wash stays silent. “Follow me. _Quiet_.”

So Wash follows the hulking armor – armor he never thought he’d see again, let alone _intact_ , meaning he’s alive, god, _alive,_ impossible – around what he soon realizes is the rim of their canyon, boxed in by the tail end of the frigate they’d crashed on. The wreck looks sad from this perspective, a twisted, hulking mass of hull struts reaching for the sky.

And yeah, okay, maybe that concussion _is_ worse than he thought. The base of his skull is starting to burn right where his neural implants are and it’s manageable, for now, but considering he’ll probably have to fight for his life any goddamn minute here? Not optimal.

He doesn’t get offered a weapon other than the knife, but a short burst of static confirms that the two of them are on the same COM channel. Wash comes up with about fifty questions to ask as they wind down the sides of the canyon into foothills but the words die in his throat every time so he stays fucking quiet, keeps fucking following.

“Okay–” They stop on the lip of a ridge, dotted with the same cracked, warm-reddish rocks that formed the canyon, and everything comes bubbling up. “– _what the hell is going on?_ ”

“You got rescued,” comes the terse reply, tinged with just the _slightest_ note of humor.

“Are you–?” Wash swallows.

“Who you think.” Maine– the Meta– holsters his Magnum, lifts up a hand, and pulls off his helmet. Yeah, it’s the same face. Older, sharper, more tired, but it’s him. It’s the Meta.

Wash feels a sickening mix of emotions in his gut, ricocheting from elation to guilt to disbelief and back again, crashing waves of things he can’t identify, and his mouth is moving on its own.

“What the hell are you _doing?_ How are you alive? I–”

“Shut up,” Maine – fuck, the Meta. What the fuck? – grunts, then pulls his helmet back on. “Keep following. Car’s two klicks northwest, down.”

“No,” Wash says simply, surprising himself. “I want answers first.” The past few days have been a total blur, between Locus and Felix and being fucking _invaded_ in that canyon, and Wash is done with not having answers.

“Want _them_ on our asses?” the Meta snarls, and steps close enough to loom. Wash stands his ground. “Answers when clear.”

“How do I know you’re not just here to kill me?” Wash pushes, fist tight around the knife.

“Kill you?” snorts the Meta. “Would’ve just left you, then.”

“How did you even end up here?” Wash adds. Oh, he’s fucking ready to let all this out. “What the hell–”

“Need to _leave_ ,” the Meta snarls, cutting him off. “Not gonna kill you, not taking you to get killed. Shut– the fuck– _up_ –” He punctuates it by stepping closer. Wash instinctively slides the knife up to press against the Meta’s throat. “–and follow me to the car.”

The blood is rushing in his ears and Wash can feel every inch of emotion he’s built up, channeled into his hands, one braced against the Meta’s armor, the other still holding the knife to his throat, one half of his brain screaming _this is him, what are you doing_ and the other half–– -

And then the Meta snorts. It vibrates through the knife and down into Wash’s palm. The Meta draws a hand from the tip of his helmet out over Wash’s head. Pointedly looks up. Pointedly looks down.

“Guess some things never change.”

Wash is so surprised that he can’t even make himself move, put the knife down, _something_ , and the Meta takes the opportunity to shove Wash’s arm away, knife included. It’s more gentle than Wash thinks he deserves.

“Answers when we’re clear,” the Meta repeats.

 

 

_When we’re clear_ turns out to be after three and a half hours’ worth of driving on pitted, cratered, blown-apart service roads towards a glow in the east that’s been growing rapidly, and then another hour of winding through rocky hills in the early-morning light.

It takes him a few second to identify the slumped, slate-gray heap they’re driving towards as a building, and as the Meta pulls them up towards the entrance, Wash thinks that maybe it used to be some kind of warehouse, factory, hangar. It looks like it’s been half-crumpled, still valiantly standing in spite of it.

The Warthog gets parked in a neat row next to at least seven other jeeps identical to theirs; the Meta grabs a duffel full of what sounds like weapons and Wash follows him through a huge hangar door, carefully noting the guards, trying to index as many of the people loitering around in the courtyard as possible.

A small handful of people nod at the Meta as he heads across the courtyard, and when someone claps the Meta on the shoulder, Wash can’t help but look over at him in surprise. The Meta carefully avoids eye contact.

“Like these guys,” the Meta finally grunts. “Don’t ask too many questions.”

“Yeah, but _I_ will.” Wash crosses his arms; the Meta snorts.

“Save that stick up your ass,” the Meta mutters. “Useful when you’re out of ammo.”

 

 

Wash has to suffer through getting food (well, if you count MREs as food), finding a room, and stripping halfway out of his armor before the Meta looks at him with something in his face Wash can’t quite identify.

“Injured?”

The question throws Wash off completely.

“I… not really.”

“Lying,” the Meta says. “Head?”

Wash rubs the back of his head – which, incidentally, _hilariously_ , is still killing him – and shrugs. There’s no need to show off just how badly he’s hurting; this situation is still too damn weird. The Meta narrows his eyes, then pulls something out of a duffel and hands it to him. The small bottle is labeled “paracetamol.”

“Thanks,” Wash says, frowning in surprise, inspecting the bottle’s contents, wary.

“Saw you get hit,” the Meta replies. “Looked bad.”

“I’ve had worse.” Wash dry-swallows two pills and looks the Meta dead in the eyes. “Worse from _you_ , I might add. What is going on? How are you alive?”

The Meta sighs heavily and sits down on one side of the table, runs a hand through his hair. He looks so much older than Wash remembers him. It’s only been– god, what, three years? Two?

“Figured - be a gun for hire after AI,” the Meta starts, and his hands start the process of disassembling his pistol, clearing the chamber, ejecting the magazine, checking for oddities. “Got lucky on that cliff. Crawled back up. Had to leave Sidewinder. Headed out here. Out of the loop for a while. Imagine my surprise: Agent Washington on the list of _greatest soldiers in the galaxy_.”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” Wash jabs, without thinking, and regrets it immediately. When the Meta meets his eyes, they’re unreadable. The gun is completely disassembled on the table.

“No,” the Meta finally says, voice low, and goes back to his pistol. “I know what I did. Not trying to be a hero.” And with that the Meta shoots him a look that’s almost contemptuous.

It’s silent for a few moments, save for Wash quietly fiddling with the knife.

“If you’re a gun for hire, who hired you? Who the hell wants _me_ alive?” Wash finally prompts. He figures he’ll start with the basics.

To his surprise, a grin ghosts across the Meta’s face and he replies, “Me.”

“What?”

“Need your help.” Maine doesn’t look like he’s joking; Wash stares at him, eyes narrowed. “Know much about Chorus?”

“Basics,” Wash replies. “The established government got a little too powerful, so some people took things into their own hands, formed the New Republic of Chorus.” The Meta nods. “And now there’s a civil war.”

“Close enough,” the Meta says, and shrugs, rolls his shoulders. “Both sides have their rights and wrongs. Planet is polarized, mostly.”

“And you?”

“Gun for hire,” the Meta repeats impatiently. “Mercenary.”

“Right.” Wash remembers Felix having called himself a mercenary, and–– well. It’s certainly one way to populate an army.

“On both sides, some squads have more resources,” the Meta says carefully. “Better people. Better tech.” Wash looks at him, because there has to be a point to this. Maine never minced his words. “Tech they shouldn’t have. Overshields. Active camo. Speed units.”

“No,” Wash says abruptly and stands, ignoring the way his stomach falls out his ass. “ _No_. I’m not getting dragged back into this mess. I’m through with anything related to–”

“ _Washington–_ ” The Meta cuts him off, low and threatening, and slowly gets to his feet. “–that’s not all.”

“Meta, I don’t care. I’m through. I got my revenge. My loose ends are tied up. I’m _done_.”

“ _I’m not_.”

The Meta grabs his datapad and pulls something up after a few quick taps.

“Been slowly raiding bases.”

“On your own?”

The Meta gives him an odd look that’s halfway between _hell no_ and _why the fuck not?_ that Wash isn’t entirely sure how to interpret.

“Few weeks ago, dug up super-encrypted audio logs.”

And fuck him, Wash is intrigued against his better judgement. The Meta plays a voice clip and it’s highly filtered, voice distorted down to flat tonelessness.

“Bothered me. Fed through filters.”

He plays the clip again. Wash feels a chill run down his spine.

“That’s–” He swallows. The room is starting to narrow down to one point but no, _no_ , Wash has this under control. “That’s the Counselor.” And then it all comes together: leaving the Director on Sidewinder, all the tech in the wreckage, an explosive, aggressive civil war–– -

And then, like a cork in a bottle, everything stops.

“I don’t trust you,” Wash says simply. The temperature in the room drops by about fifty degrees. “I know what you’re capable of. I know what _he’s_ capable of. How do I know you’re not sitting at his heel?”

“You think I would help _him?_ ” the Meta snarls. “After what he did to me? To you? All of us?”

“You’ve got no problems looking out for yourself,” Wash fires back. “Why do you even need my help? For all I know, this entire thing could be a trap.”

“Same old you,” snorts the Meta. “Too paranoid to trust facts.”

Wash isn’t _entirely_ sure how his fist ended up in the Meta’s face, but really, it’s been a long time coming. He gets his lip split in return and then they’re both facing off with the table squarely between them, knees bent, hands ready.

“Well, _excuse me_ for not trusting someone who turned on me the last time we worked together,” Wash grinds out, voice climbing.

“People change.” The Meta wipes at his profusely-bleeding-and-probably-broken nose. “Work through emotional trauma. Figured you of all people would remember what it’s like with AI.”

“How come _you_ ’re the only one who’s caught on to this Counselor thing? How come no one’s doing anything, if they were so happy to see Project Freelancer brought to its knees and now they’re caught up in it?”

“People get desperate.” The Meta’s voice drops low. “Desperate means dangerous. Means they’ll grasp for anything that might give them a chance at getting what they want. Or what they had.” He slowly lowers his hands, keeping them open and in sight. “Not trying to trick you, Wash. Just want to finally end this fucking mess.”

Wash scrubs a hand over his face, wipes the blood off his chin. It’s hard to meet the Meta’s eyes.

“I’ve spent the last few years trying to end _this fucking mess_ ,” Wash finally says. “I even got thrown in jail for my trouble. I’m _dead_ because of all this, as far as they’re concerned. And–” He sighs. “Even if the Counselor gets shown for what he is, this is a backwater planet with a civil war on its hands. He’s not worth the UNSC’s attention any more. For their purposes, the Project is done, over with, and taken care of.”

“Not for my purposes,” the Meta snarls back, louder than Wash has heard him in years. “You got your revenge. I didn’t.”

Wash is very, _very_ close to initiating a full-on brawl just for the sake of venting his frustration. _Very_ healthy.

“Asking for your help,” the Meta continues, voice still rising, hands curling into fists. Wash can hear the rasping in his throat grow and a very small, very dormant part of him is starting to get concerned. “Helped you get closure. Help _me_.” He chuffs out a dry cough. “ _Asking_. Not demanding.”

Wash finds the Meta’s datapad with his hand and slowly pushes it back across the table to him. The Meta pulls up a holo display and starts typing.

`I brought you here because I trust what you’ve been through. It’s not that I wouldn’t trust a paid merc to do their job, but you know this. You were there. You lived it.`

Wash looks away. He’s staring his own arguments in the face and he can hear the Chairman’s smooth pompous voice, asking why on earth he’d ask to work with the Meta, _such_ an unstable soldier, they have so many other units at his disposal. Worse than that, he can feel that stupid fucking weight of responsibility falling down on his shoulders because he should’ve _known_ the Counselor would still be out there and it’s _his fault_ for not tying up that loose fucking end, not following all of the threads he should’ve followed. He sits back down with a sigh.

“Okay,” he says. “Fine.” The Meta looks at him with a sort of inscrutable, halfway-decipherable look of relief. “If you turn on me – _again_ – I’m not gonna hesitate to drop you this time.”

The Meta’s mouth turns up in half a cold smile.

`If I’m remembering correctly, the last time around, _I_ did a lot more of the hesitating to ‘drop’ you.`

`Now set my goddamn nose. You broke it.`

 

 

“So,” Wash says ten minutes later, deciding to finally address the fucking elephant in the room, “just like going after Epsilon.”

The Meta raises an eyebrow.

`Yeah, except I’d like to think that at least one of us has done some personal growth since then. Two ex-soldiers with some trust issues, some paranoia issues, and more than just some aggression issues, teaming up to chase after something that shouldn’t exist. Just like old times.`

“We… definitely hit some bumps in the road last time.” Wash crosses his arms. Christ, he hates conversations like these.

`That’s putting it mildly.`

“I don’t–” Whatever. “I don’t trust what the AI made you. I don’t trust _anything_ those AI touched. I trusted Maine.” He pointedly avoids eye contact. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever trust you.”

`Fair enough. I don’t know that I trust you–`

A pause.

`–but you’re the best I’ve got now. You took me to find Epsilon when you could’ve had your pick of SpecOps. I owe you the same.`

“Fair enough.”

`Just try not to stab me this time. Or throw me off of a cliff.`

“Then don’t give me a reason to,” Wash fires back, bristling. The Meta narrows his eyes.

`You don’t know what it’s like t`

“I don’t know what it’s like? _I_ don’t know what it’s like?” Wash is on his feet now, hands planted firmly on the table, temper flaring.

“Don’t know what it’s like to feel human only when AI drown you out,” the Meta snarls out loud, slowly standing opposite him. Wash feels a coldness creeping at the edges of his anger. “Don’t know what it’s like to have something redefine you.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Not like this.”

He’s at that point where he’s either going to flare up or deflate, caught between anger and empathy; his head is fucking _pounding_ now, the paracetamol still hasn’t kicked in, and it’s only exacerbating things. God. He hasn’t argued like this in fucking _years._ Arguments with the Blues usually made less sense and hinged on fucking–– _food_. Or porn. Ugh.

`Use that Article Twelve fucking brain of yours. Just because we got fucked up differently doesn’t make us any less fucked up. Stop making this a big dick contest.` Maine snorts. `I’m hitting the showers. If you trust me enough not to kill you with my bare, soapy hands, then come with.`

Yeah, Wash has no idea what the fuck he’s gotten himself into.

 

 

It’s a short shower, cold and communal, marked mostly by a) Wash realizing that he’s the cause of at least two of those stab wound scars on the Meta’s chest, b) Wash realizing that the Meta has _cauterized burn scars_ from Tucker’s sword, and c) Wash trying to wrap his head around the fact that the Meta seems, for all intents and purposes, to have completely mellowed the fuck out.

It’s a _weird_ thought. Wash is used to being the one that’s off-balance, yeah, but definitely fucking _not_ where the Meta is concerned. Was. The Meta is using things like Logic and Seeing The Other Side Of The Argument. Things Wash hasn’t experienced from other people in, like, over a decade, much less from _the Meta_.

That _look_ is gone from his eyes, too. Wash can’t pretend to be disappointed there.

It turns out that it’s an old industrial complex that the merc base is sprawled through, to the effect of looking like something out of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. From what Wash knows about Chorus and its problems, that’s not too far from the truth.

Broken windows let thick beams of light pour over the huge– well, it’s practically a cavern they’re walking through. Wash catches sight of _loads_ of shit that was definitely contraband the last time he’d checked, all laid out on tables as vendors and dealers haggle with scarred, tired mercs and refugees.

“How bad has this planet gotten?” Wash asks the Meta quietly.

“Bad,” he answers simply.

“What happened?” It’s half a rhetorical question but the Meta slows anyways, and Wash watches him carefully consider his words.

“Not sure,” the Meta replies. “Wasn’t– _here_.” He shrugs, _you know_. “UNSC didn’t care, ignored by Covvies. UNSC pulled out, left vacuum. Feds tried, Republic disagreed. Bombings, attacks, both sides.”

Wash realizes that he’s really only _barely_ rusty at reading Maine’s – the Meta’s – body language, and that’s… well. That’s not something he’s going to pick apart.

“And there’s no way to try for a political resolution?”

The Meta snorts and shakes his head, then resumes his weaving path through the atrium-esque area they’re in, and Wash can’t help but continue to catch the openness in his shoulders, the looseness in his hands. The Meta feels safe here and he feels safe around Wash. Wash, who sort of tried to kill him last time they saw each other.

He follows as the Meta suddenly veers and ducks into a doorway (literally ducks, he notes with amusement, because he’s pretty sure no one in Freelancer will ever forget that one time Maine banged his head on a door frame, nor will anyone without a death wish _ever_ bring it up), bringing them to a dim but evenly lit room; more of a huge-ass garage than anything, really.

The walls are covered, floor to ceiling, with padlocked cages, and Wash estimates at _least_ a hundred different types of weapons, just from what’s displayed.

“Hey, sweetheart,” calls a voice, and Wash stops staring – _looking_ – at the walls to see a short, stocky, dark-skinned older woman grinning at the Meta. “I wondered where you’d gone.”

The Meta grins back at her and hands her a datapad.

“We just got back too. Hey, you with him?” Wash raises his eyebrows in surprise once he realizes that _he’s_ the target of this question, and looks at the Meta, who takes the datapad back and types something out.

“Wow. I’m Lucía,” she says once she’s done reading, and holds out her hand for Wash to shake. It’s scarred and calloused.

“My name’s–” Fuck. _Shit_. “–David.”

He can feel the Meta staring a hole through the side of his head.

“You got a good friend in him, no?” She grins again, scars and smile lines pulling at the side of her mouth, and Wash smiles back in spite of himself. “That, or M owes you _big_.” Lucía laughs, warm and open, and looks back up at Maine. Wash feels something in his brain hitch on _M_. “And you owe _me_ some food before you disappear again, mijo.”

“Scaring off customer,” grunts a pile of armor that Wash hadn’t been aware was animate. “Look, he looking like to run away.”

“Can it, you old miser,” Lucía replies, still grinning good-naturedly, then turns back to the Meta. “Don’t forget. Dinner.”

And with that, she smiles at Wash again, pats what she can reach of the Meta’s arm, and heads for the doorway.

 

 

Wash waits until they’re back where their armor is stowed to have an existential crisis.

The _Meta?_ With _friends_ and _meaningful relationships?_ Either that concussion was worse than he thought, or Wash’s life no longer makes any sense in _any_ dimension.

He’s really not sure which of those options is more likely.

“How long have you been on Chorus?” Wash finally asks, slinging the duffel onto the table next to the one that the Meta’s unzipping.

“Year,” he replies and then, anticipating Wash’s next question: “Met Lucía on Sidewinder, after the fall.” Christ. It doesn’t feel like a year. He doesn’t know what it feels like, but definitely not a year. “Saved Lucía and her wife. First people saved instead of killing, after AI.”

Just because there’s an explanation doesn’t make it feel any less like the rug’s been yanked out from under Wash’s feet. He starts taking out the small arsenal he’d “acquired” at the shop (on the Meta’s tab, since apparently that’s how things work on Chorus) and he lets his hands go through the easy motions of checking and re-checking every weapon, setting everything out neatly on the table.

It takes him a few seconds to realize that the Meta is watching him carefully. Wash looks up to meet his eyes.

“‘David?’” the Meta asks.

Wash feels like he’s been punched in the chest.

“I don’t know what kind of reaction ‘Agent Washington’ would have gotten,” he mutters. “I don’t know what the hell these people know about me.”

“Know you’re a hero,” the Meta says, finally looking away, and shrugs. “Know you’re worth your salt.”

Wash isn’t sure whether he’s more unsettled by the fact that he’s considered a _hero_ , or by the fact that the Meta is so nonchalant in his delivery.

“Regardless,” he says, awkwardly clearing his throat, “it’s… probably not a good idea to broadcast… me. Myself.” _God_ , this all sounds so conceited. “The last time I got attention for my _reputation_ , I ended up getting knocked out.” The corner of the Meta’s mouth quirks up.

“Lucky I was there.”

“I’m sure,” Wash mutters, and looks down at the BR-55 in his hands. It’s conveniently banged up and scuffed right where the serial number should be. “How did you even _find_ me? Much less avoid _two armies?_ ”

The Meta starts laughing - quiet laughter but genuine laughter, the scars on his throat jumping as he smiles in a teasingly, jokingly condescending way that Wash remembers just as well as he remembers Maine’s voice.

`Finding you was easy. Big ship, big crash.` He pauses and looks up at Wash, and Wash shrugs. Felix, Locus, and their respective employers had found them, so he supposes it’s not that much of a stretch that the Meta could, too.

` Out here, skills like mine aren’t that useful. Most people hire you for assassinations, not to loudly take out a few dozen soldiers.`

Wash raises an eyebrow at “few dozen soldiers,” but doesn’t say anything as the Meta clears his throat and coughs quietly as he continues to type.

`Either I had to learn how to tiptoe, or I was out of a job. So, I learned how to tiptoe. Ended up getting good at it _._`

“Uh huh,” Wash says, and he’s sure the skepticism is written plain on his face. The Meta huffs indignantly at him.

`Didn’t get noticed in that canyon, did I?` He snorts again. `Invisibility and anonymity are useful here.`

“So I suppose it’s somehow, just luckily, a _good_ thing I’m essentially a wanted man,” Wash says, crossing his arms.

`I’m not forcing you to come with,` the Meta writes, and shrugs. `You can fuck off if you really want to. I’m not going to stop you.`

Something about that just fucking _needles_ Wash in all the wrong places, but he can’t put his finger on _why_.

“No,” he says shortly. “I–” He stops, trying to figure out words for what’s milling around in his head. “This is my mess, too. You were right about that.”

`You’re right, too. About visibility, I mean. You _do_ have a reputation, on this planet and off of it.`

“Well, we’re obviously going to have to lie low.”

“No shit.”

Wash ignores the jab.

“I’m assuming you either know the planet well enough, or you’ve got maps. Do you even know where the Counselor _is?_ ”

“No,” the Meta says. “Tracked signal, found a base. That’s all.”

“That sure inspires confidence in me.”

The Meta shoots him a withering look, then picks his datapad back up.

`Go to sleep. We might not have access to beds for a while, so savor it while you can.`

 

 

_blood –– hands around his throat bruising burning blood slicked across the fingers– breath hot on his face and eyes unfamiliar, voice rolling ––_

_––maine. doesn’t. exist._

_–burst of cold blue **epsilon** circuits flaring pain panic hands around his throat–– -_

Wash is awake.

His hands are clenched tight in the sheets and he’s sweating, heart racing, breaths uneven, refusing to close his eyes because that face is still burned into the backs of his eyelids.

He swallows audibly and regrets that almost instantly because it practically echoes in the cold concrete room and _god_ knows everyone who went through Freelancer is a light sleeper. The Meta waking up is the last thing he needs right now.

So yeah, maybe he’s been overdue for a nightmare about arguably the worst day of his life, ruling out the implant, but that doesn’t mean he wanted to cash in that IOU _now_.

It’s 3:43 in the morning, which means he got a solid almost-three hours of sleep. Well, he might as well be productive.

 

Finding coffee is an adventure and a half, but after fifteen minutes of awkwardly asking directions, he’s got a disposable cup in his hand and an expansive amount of maps downloaded to his datapad. He’s shocked he still has that damn datapad, to be honest, and it’s acquired some questionable scratches, but he sure as hell isn’t complaining that it’s not gone.

From what he can tell from quickly poking around the local infoshare network, Chorus was _the_ perfect little colony world. It’s a pretty sizeable planet; it’s got highly stratified climate zones and warm oceans, wide belts of temperate and subtropical zones broken up by high and low deserts, and tundras at each pole. Mild summers, not-as-mild winters, wet between. Temperatures plummet at night in the deserts and there’s year-round snow at the poles, but the wide, flat zones of perfect farmland mean that Chorus has always been an agricultural gem. And that’s on top of a _huge_ amount of natural resources.

Wash is reminded unsettlingly of what Harvest had been like. They’d all seen the vids. They’d all grown up with the horror story.

Except instead of aliens, Chorus got hit by a shitty government, and then everything escalated. Go figure. Wash can’t find much about what’s actually _happening_ here that isn’t horrifyingly biased one way or the other, but it looks like your average, run-of-the-mill civil war scenario. But then there’s the Counselor.

Seriously, of all shitty situations to land himself in: stranded on a backwater planet in the middle of a civil war with someone he thought he watched die, and about to start on a crusade to kill one of the people responsible for completely fucking up both of them.

He takes a long drink of his coffee.

 

 

“News?”

Wash looks up to see the Meta leaning in the doorway, hair mussed.

“Just looking at some maps.”

The Meta grunts, grabs a bag, and heads out the door.

Wash swirls the dregs of his long-cold coffee around, then drains the cup and plays with it mindlessly as he maps out another possible route through Fed territory. It takes the Meta fifteen minutes to come back, hair damp, towel on his shoulder.

“Is the planet split fifty-fifty between the Federals and the New Republic?” Wash asks without preamble, still spinning the cup around the rim of its base with a finger.

“Mercs too,” the Meta replies, and sits down at the table opposite Wash. He pulls out his own datapad. “Lot messier than fifty-fifty. Makes searching hard.”

“Where the Counselor could be, you mean,” Wash clarifies. The Meta makes a wishy-washy gesture and pulls up a topographic map on his own datapad; it rises up from the datapad to spread, glowing, across the tabletop. A small handful of flags pop up.

“Where signal bounced from,” the Meta corrects. “3,000 klicks square. Don’t think he was _there_. Not hard to re-route signals.” He broadly circles the flags with a finger. “Most in Fed territory, some neutral. Spread out from there.”

“Is there a planetary capital?”

“Under Fed control.”

“Orbital platforms? Orbital shipyards?” Wash runs a hand over his face thoughtfully. “He could be off-planet.” The Meta huffs out a laugh.

“Never had orbital defenses. Space elevators, spacedock, but–” He shrugs. “–defunct for years.”

“Wow.” Wash had known shit’s bad, but not _this_ bad. No space elevators means no exports means no economy, which… well, now the state of the merc base makes a lot more sense.

“Signal was planetside,” the Meta says, and shifts. Wash narrows his eyes.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The Meta shifts again, zooms out on the map a bit, scrolls around meaninglessly.

“Chorus…” He plays with the map again, uneasy. Wash doesn’t remember him fiddling like this back… then. “No long-range comms.”

“What?”

The Meta just looks at him, obviously unwilling to repeat himself. Wash tries again.

“What do you mean, no long-range comms?”

“Exactly that.”

“What– how does that make sense? How does anything _function?_ ”

“Doesn’t,” The Meta grunts. “No long-range comms. Anything distance, record it, give it to a person traveling there. Nothing off-planet.”

“So how is _this_ long-range, then?” Wash asks, frustrated, pointing down at the Meta’s datapad.

“That’s the _problem_ ,” The Meta growls, gesturing sharply, and then letting his hand fall heavily to the table. “Don’t know. Don’t have enough info.” He gestures to the collection of holographic flags, then meets Wash’s eyes.

Wash leans his elbows on the tabletop and exhales slowly.

“Okay, then we need a plan.”

 

 

They’ve got three possible main routes mapped out, five backup routes, and two emergency routes laid out by the time the sun drops below the horizon. Wash is _pretty_ confident that even if something completely unprecedented happens, they’ll be able to adapt. They’ve always been good at that.

The _plan_ , insofar as one even exists, really, is to try and find a duplicate of the signal the Meta had intercepted. Someone else on the same frequency, a stashed record of the communique, another message sent long-range, anything weird. Which means raiding bases. Which means raiding both Fed and New Republic bases. Which means they’ll be on the run. Together. Again.

There’s a five-mile-long track running around the base, and Wash is three-quarters of a mile into a blowing-off-steam run when one of the knots in his stomach violently resurfaces.

_The Reds and the Blues_.

He nearly trips over a rock but keeps going, fighting down the panic that’s rising in his chest. He can’t fucking _believe_ he’d managed to forget. Well, okay, it’s been a hectic few days, but that’s no excuse. _Fuck_.

He brings it up as casually as possible when he comes back from a shower, towel draped across his shoulders.

“What I’ve heard, seen, no one’s in danger,” the Meta says. “Group with the New Republic, reports of training. Feds, saw medics running to your friends after I grabbed you. Safe.”

Wash rubs his temples.

“Caboose and Tucker–” He stops. “I feel like I owe them– I feel like I _owe them_.”

“You do,” the Meta replies simply. “CO owes all their soldiers.” He pauses. “Feds won’t mistreat them. Republic won’t mistreat them. Don’t have to worry. They’ll find each other – take care of themselves.”

“I can’t _not_ worry,” Wash snaps. “I’m responsible for them. Well, some of them. Sort of.” He pauses. “Okay, not really. But they’re… my friends."

`Like I said,` the datapad reads, `I’m not forcing you to come with me. I won’t hold it against you if you want to go back to them. I’ve known you for a long time now, so don’t think I can’t tell how much these people mean to you. If you want to, go. If you’re not sure, think about it.`

Wash is rendered speechless for a full ten seconds. This staggering propensity towards open empathy is the last thing he thought he’d face from the Meta. Maine had obviously had _feelings_ and all, but he hadn’t ever exactly been the most sensitive person. This is–

“Wash?”

“You’ve changed,” he says, summing up everything he’s been struggling to manage for the past two days before his brain-mouth filter can properly re-engage.

`So have you. I don’t expect you to be the same man I almost killed on Sidewinder, so I don’t know why you keep expecting me to be the same person you left for dead on Sidewinder.`

“You’re right,” Wash replies shortly, surprised, and he knows his voice sounds tense. “It’s not fair of me. It’s just–” He searches for a word, a phrase, _anything_ to explain what it just is, and he steadily avoids the Meta’s eyes. The silence stretches on.

“Yeah,” the Meta says quietly.

`You weren’t the same after Epsilon, you know. Not those first few days in the hospital, not when you were tracking––` A long pause. `––me down in the Recovery force, not when we ran that last mission together. And you’re not that same man now. You changed, and those sim troopers are a part of that.`

“I guess these mercs changed _you_ , then.”

`No, `the Meta types, and he looks thoughtful. `I changed myself. A near-death experience like that one really does a number on you. All I want is a chance to help save a few people. This–` He taps the datapad, and Wash knows he’s talking about the intercepted comm. `–could save a planet. I can’t fix what I’ve done, but I can try to help these people.`

Wash is torn, and honesty wins out.

“I’m…” He pauses. “I want to help you. I know how you feel. But I… also have an obligation to help my friends.” He folds his arms across the table and hunches over. “I should help them, but I should help you, too.”

The Meta makes an odd, aborted half-gesture before carefully going back to his datapad.

`Like I’ve said, I’m not going to push you, and I’m not going to force you. I want to leave tomorrow, and we _could_ split up if you want some time, but splitting up would only cause problems when it comes to regrouping.`

“Yeah.”

The Meta scratches absently at his throat.

`I’ll see if I can get any more info on your friends. Sam and Lucía have more connections than I can count.`

_God_. It feels like there’s a knife slowly being pushed into his chest every time the Meta opens that door just an inch wider. He’d always known that there’s a good, decent human being inside Maine – and, by proxy, the Meta – but it’s always been nicely covered up with some impressively Homeric hubris and a talent for all kinds of fighting. He’s so _open_ with it now that it’s like facing a totally different person every time the Meta nonchalantly offers him that decency.

“Why are you doing this? All of this?” It’s not that Wash wants to look a weird sort of gift horse in the mouth, it’s that paranoia is crawling up his throat, sinking its illogical claws deep in.

“Got a lot of people to make shit up to. You, the most.”

 

 

The garage – motor pool, whatever – is busy as hell. There’s a group of refugees passing through and they’re all milling around their battered cars while a small group of haggard, tired-looking adults argue with some mercs in a corner.

The Meta drops his duffel into the back of a Warthog and it thuds ominously.

“Get your shit in,” he says. “Time to go.”

“Any news?” Wash asks, and the Meta shakes his head.

“Sam and Lucía–” He breaks off, looking away, and holds up a hand. “Be back.”

Wash watches him lope across the bay, watches people double-take and scramble out of his way. God, the Meta is fucking _huge_. He pulls aside two mercs, and Wash is surprised to see how _gently_ the Meta does it.

One of them turns and it’s Lucía, reading the datapad she’d been offered, and the woman next to her – tall, slim, densely curly salt-and-pepper hair shaved into a mohawk – leans over her shoulder to pay attention. She’s got one hand on the Meta’s shoulder, Wash notes, and his surprise only intensifies. The back-and-forth conversation is short, seemingly uncomplicated; Lucía and the person he can only assume to be her wife both put on their helmets with a sort of finality after less than a minute.

The Meta takes back his datapad; Lucía raps his helmet with her knuckles, the person who might be Sam claps his shoulder, and then the Meta turns and heads back towards Wash and the car.

“All your friends are safe,” the Meta grunts, and climbs into the driver’s seat. “Feds releasing ‘em from medbays, Republic finding a way to get their group back with the others.”

“If something goes south–”

“Be first to hear about it.”

Wash gives the Meta a long, searching look, and then, finally, slowly gets into the passenger side of the ‘Hog.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

 

 

“Why _me?_ Especially when you’ve got people that you’ve worked with for way longer, more recently?”

This is the fucking problem. When he doesn’t have anything to actively occupy him, his thoughts cycle over and over through the same problems, _over and over_ , nitpicking every detail, getting snagged on every possibility.

The Meta looks away from the road at Wash, one hand resting hooked into the steering wheel, and Wash can practically see the way he’s staring.

“Told you.” It’s easier to hear all that _damage_ in the Meta’s voice when it’s coming across their COM channels. Wash’s stomach twists with old sympathy. “You know what I went through. Went through it too.”

“Why trust me?” Or– “Well, why trust me enough to ask me along, I guess.”

“COM channel not working?” grunts the Meta. “Both have a reason to track him down.” He pauses, pulls up the dashboard map and checks something. “Been with Sam and Lucía over a year. Trust them with life. But–” He pauses again to check a different overlay and Wash realizes that he’s _fiddling_ , trying to be sly about it. “–trust you with _this_.”

“Thanks,” Wash says. “I think.”

The Meta shrugs and looks back at the road.

 

 

Wash doesn’t remember the last time he’s spent the night outside like this. Well, okay, it was probably some time back when he and the Meta were tracking the Reds and the Blues, but still. It feels odd.

He walks back around the perimeter they’ve set up and double-checks that the trackers are working, then heads back to “camp.”

“I set trackers,” he announces, but the Meta doesn’t look up from his datapad. His shoulders are tense with concentration.

“Barely in range of comms,” the Meta says after a pause. “Sam says, leave a message for your friends. Can pass it on, if she gets a chance.”

“I… yeah. I’ll do that.”

The Meta’s fingers sprint across his datapad, and he holds it out. Wash can feel the repulsion-pressure of their shields on his fingertips when he takes the datapad, like magnets rejecting each other.

He clears his throat awkwardly and moves back around the other side of the car, trying to come up with something to say. Something that doesn’t sound like “hey guys, totally abandoning you to waltz across the planet with the Meta,” but that isn’t actually a lie.

“Hey Tucker, Caboose,” he starts. “And… Reds. You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not at the Fed base.” He cringes internally. _Awkward_. “I, uh… got out out of the canyon. It turns out there’s something personal I’ve got to take care of here on Chorus. Something from a long time ago coming back to bite my ass.” A pause. A pause that’s probably too long. “I’ve gotten you guys mixed up in too much to drag you into this, too, so… keep your noses clean. I’ll try my best to keep in touch, but given–” Dammit. “–it might be hard. We’ll see.” Yeah, long past time to wrap this up. “Take care of yourselves. Wash out.”

He checks the playback on that trainwreck to make sure it’s fine, cringes at himself, and then walks back to return the datapad to the Meta.

“Glad for you,” the Meta says once it’s sent. “Good your friends are safe.”

“Yeah,” Wash says, and looks down at his hands. “Yeah. Hopefully they stay that way.”

“Take first watch,” the Meta grunts after an acceptably long pause. “Wake me in three.”

 

Wash jerks awake to the Meta leaning over him, hand on his shoulder, and he has to choke back a noise of shock.

“Nightmare,” the Meta says quietly. “Looked bad.”

Wash drags himself up and leans his back against the car, still fucking shaking, still fucking terrified. The Meta lowers his eyes and turns around to slowly walk to the edge of their camp and Wash realizes that, as much as he can, the Meta is giving him space.

He reaches for water and takes a long drink, hands still shaking, then inhales slowly and exhales slowly.

“You never had Epsilon, did you?”

The Meta looks back over at him and shakes his head.

“Lucky you.”

“I’m sure.”

Wash takes another deep breath and he’s okay, he’s good to go. He pulls his helmet on and throws what little gear he’d used back into his bag, starts checking the tracker locations to pick them back up.

“Load the car, Meta. I’ll get the trackers.”

The Meta slowly looks at him, eyes narrowed, and Wash gets that sinking feeling in his gut like he’s messed up somehow.

“Watch your tone,” the Meta says, voice low.

“What?”

“Tone. Don’t be an ass again. Last time.”

Oh, christ. This shit again.

“It was– mental self-defense, ” Wash snaps. “You don’t know how it felt––”

“What? Watch your own body kill your friends, AI screaming in your head? Fight for clarity when the gun’s pointed at your–” He stops. “–at _you_ , Wash? Then have it all ripped out, dead silence? Deal with _that?_ ”

“To be working with the shell of someone you knew,” Wash spits angrily. “To be exhausting every defense mechanism you’ve ever used, just to keep yourself going. To be stripped down and betrayed and _thrown in jail_ for no reason, then to get let out like a dog on a leash along with someone who tried to kill you.”

“Pot meets kettle,” the Meta snarls. “Don’t act like only _you_ were hurt.”

Wash laughs bitterly.

“The AI hurt you,” he says, “and you hurt _people_. You might have nightmares about what they put you through, but at least _you_ don’t have nightmares about _me_.”

The Meta practically recoils, shock carefully contained on his face, but Wash can read him too well for his own good. For _both_ their good.

“You have nightmares about–?”

Wash can feel his face flushing under the helmet but fuck it, he’s angry, he’s riled the fuck up, and a good fifty percent of that is directed straight back at himself because the Meta is definitely right about that pot meets kettle thing.

“I do,” he snaps. “You can’t fucking–– I nearly _died_ , did you know that?”

“I didn’t.” The Meta is completely still. “If I could’ve done–” He turns his head away. “I’m sorry. For what they did. To me, to you.”

Wash stays silent. He doesn’t really know what to say, and there’s a part of him insisting that he should be apologizing, too, but there’s too much he needs to process and he’s still worked up and _angry_ so he settles for silence as the wisest course of action. Maybe not _right_ , but best.

 

 

He misses York a lot. Especially by the third long day of driving, by the third night of conversations that get blown out of proportion into pointless arguments. York had always had a way of filling silences that needed filling, and he can’t exactly try that with the Meta because he’s really not ready to reconcile this person with quiet evenings spent together in recovery, heads bent over a datapad, hands around his throat and a manic grin he doesn’t know at all––

Wash tunes back in to nod blankly in acknowledgement when the Meta tells him they’re doing okay for time so far and that they should hit the first Fed outpost tomorrow, get to the city by the end of the week.

Wash allows himself a small, teeny-tiny, dim little ray of hope.

 

 

Falling back in step with the Meta is remarkably easy. Kind of scarily easy, actually. Wash had thought it’d be hard, after spending all that time with the Blues, but this feels like normality in a way that’s really unsettling.

He mentally boots himself off that train of thought and does a triple-check over the rifle to make sure it’s not gonna fuck up on him, then neatly stacks up all the extra magazines. Trust an army to set up a base blocking the only way through a valley.

“Ready?” the Meta asks.

“Ready. Wish we had more equipment, though.”

The Meta shrugs and makes an _if only_ sort of face; Wash rolls his shoulders back and does some stretches to limber up before deactivating the lockup keeping his armor in a neat, small stack.

He’s up to his knees in armor by the time he realizes that the Meta has been looking at him. Scrutinizingly, even.

“What?” he grunts.

“Bulked up,” the Meta says, and shrugs.

“Yeah? You’ve finally learned how to drive. Awards all around.”

The Meta snorts at him, and ignores the jab.

“Look good. Might hold your own in a fight, now. Too bad you didn’t grow a foot taller, too.”

 

 

Wash sets up camp at the edge of a short cliff, buries himself deep in the low brush and short, stubby trees, and sets his trackers. The Meta sends a short burst of static over their COM channel, then nods. Wash blinks his status light green.

“I’ve got nearly full coverage of the outpost up here,” he says, once the Meta leaves and starts winding down towards the outpost. “Looks like four… six Feds. That I can see, at least.” He squirms quietly and readjusts himself.

“Trackers?”

“Nothing so far. Maybe you’ll run into a surprise.”

“Got you to cover any _surprises_.”

God, it’s been ages since Wash last camped out as a cover like this. It’s so fucking _intimate_ , somehow, and he realizes that he and the Meta have been quietly murmuring to each other, disregarding the fact that no one can actually hear anything outside their helmets.

His trackers pick up a Fed moving through the small canyon framed by the cliff he’s on and he waits patiently, lines up the shot–

“Wash.”

“Shut up.”

–holds his breath, moves his finger inside the trigger guard, squeezes once.

“Wash.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Chatter, patrol coming in. Southwest.”

“I just picked someone off along the creek to the southwest. I’ll keep an eye out for more.”

A few uneven breaths come through the COM channel, and then:

“Got one, in from southeast.”

“Wonder when they’ll notice.”

“Maybe when bodies start smelling.” A quiet breath; Wash can feel the amusement, can imagine the smile. And then, a grunt.

“What?”

“Nothing. Maybe.” The Meta pauses, and Wash feels tension creeping into his shoulders. “Might be active camo. Trackers–” A whump, an exhale, another grunt. “Camo. Two. Maybe more. Don’t like this.”

“I’m gonna take out as many as I can from here, then move up,” Wash says, lining up a shot. “Ready?”

“Sync.”

“Sync.”

One more clean headshot, and then another, and then someone notices and the alarm gets tripped. Wash bags yet another kill, then slings the DMR on his back and pulls off the BR55, loads a magazine and checks his trackers. Nothing. Time to use good old-fashioned eyesight, then.

A warped, soldier-shaped chunk of air launches itself towards Wash right as he turns, and only an uncharacteristic moment of trigger-happiness saves his dumb ass, catching the cloaked Fed with two three-round bursts to the chest and neck. It’s an old unit that looks like it got scrounged off an Elite a decade ago, and a weird sense of relief swoops through Wash’s stomach.

“Meta,” he barks out, and heads down the soft, southeast slope of the cliff, moving as fast as he can in a low crouch through the brush.

“Calling for–” A crackle. “–for reinforcements. Bug out, _now_ –”

Wash takes out one of two Feds heading for where the Meta is absolutely _decimating_ a group of four, then swears loudly because _of course_ the fucking gun jams. He’s good, yeah, but he can’t do this shit with a fucking DMR and a half-empty pistol.

He grabs the pistol on his thigh anyways and takes out the Fed trying to get around the Meta’s back, then closes the distance between them right as the Meta drops the last Fed.

“Let’s _go_ ,” Wash says urgently, but the Meta kneels down to strip each Fed of mags and pistols with cold efficiency.

“Thank me later,” he huffs, and breaks into a run towards the center of the Fed outpost.

“Where–?”

“Faster to take their car,” the Meta says, boots scraping against the concrete floor.

“ _What?_ ”

“Trust me,” the Meta snarls, and shoves an ignition chip into the nearest Warthog, launches himself in with surprising grace. The Warthog’s suspension groans as it settles about a foot down.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Wash snaps back, and perches himself in the passenger side. “Give me your pistol. Or _a_ pistol, whatever. Rifle jammed.”

“DMR?” The Meta makes a point to knock over the last (barely) standing Fed on his way out, and smacks a pistol into Wash’s open palm.

“BR.”

The Meta grunts. Wash hopes it’s in sympathy. They’re headed back to where they stashed their own ‘Hog and now Wash sees the logic behind driving, _especially_ if that outpost called for reinforcements.

He keeps his fingers crossed for smooth sailing.

 

 

A solid 60 hours later, Wash is not-so-gently reminded that just because they’re in half-ton power armor doesn’t mean they can’t get hurt. Smooth sailing, his ass.

He’s going to have a great assortment of bruises when he wakes up. It feels like he’s been hit by a truck but _oh, wait,_ he _literally_ got run over 30 minutes ago. It’s really only a slight consolation that the Meta is worse off than he is. He and the Meta have gotten roughly four hours of sleep in the past two and a half days, on top of two skirmishes, at least thirty klicks of running, _and_ that last nest of Feds they’d had to take out with just their pistols.

They make do in an abandoned farmhouse to shed their armor and stash it in the car; there’s a neutral town twenty klicks east they’ve been aiming for but showing up in armor is just screaming for trouble.

“I think my shoulder’s dislocated,” Wash gasps, when he’s halfway out of his armor and it’s quite evident that he can’t move the way he’s supposed to move. The Meta growls wordlessly and moves behind him.

“On three,” he says, carefully grabbing hold of Wash’s biceps with one hand and bracing his sprained-or-otherwise-injured-somehow hand against Wash’s back. “One–” And then he pops the joint back into place without further warning.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Wash hisses, and rolls his shoulder experimentally. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

 

 

By the time they’re gruffly handed a keychip to a room and then promptly ignored by the motel’s “concierge,” Wash is _just about_ ready to pass out. He’s got just enough left in him for a shower and a short stretch, and he has to bite back a groan slinging the duffel off his shoulder.

The Meta closes and locks the door, primes an alarm, and then strips his jacket of the four scavenged pistols and nine-odd magazines they’d taken from the last batch of Feds. It’s truly amazing, Wash thinks, how little some things change.

“Toss you,” the Meta grunts, jerking a thumb towards the single bed.

“What?”

Single bed. Two people. _One_ bed. Right.

“Oh. No, you take it. You’re in worse shape than I am.”

The Meta raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t protest further.

 

Wash leaves the shower in an worn tee and a pair of sweats to find the Meta slowly opening and closing his left hand, trying to rotate it at the elbow.

“Hey,” Wash snaps, but instead it comes out worn and soft. “Don’t do that.”

The Meta snorts at him and stops trying to turn his hand, but makes a fist.

“Sprained. Not too bad,” he says. “Splint, should be fine.”

Wash sighs and picks the medkit out of the Meta’s duffel and, too tired to process anything past than his immediate actions, sits down on the bed next to him.

“Let me see.” The Meta slowly extends his arm and yeah, it’s swollen as hell. Wash carefully runs his fingers over the joint, checking for any disconnects, doing his best not to jostle it unnecessarily. It takes him a good few seconds to realize he’s not _actually_ doing anything, just sort of holding the Meta’s wrist, tiredly soaking up human contact. He clears his throat and avoids the Meta’s pointed stare as he digs out a field kit, wraps up the wrist with deliberate detachedness.

“Wash.” He looks up, blinking slowly, and the Meta meets his eyes before pointedly looking down to where Wash _still has a goddamn hand on his forearm_. Christ. He scrubs his hands down his face.

“I’m gonna sleep,” he finally mumbles, voice muffled, and stands. “At least we’ll finally get a full three or four hours tonight.” The Meta scrutinizes him.

“Big bed,” he says, and shrugs. “Just saying.”

Wash stares at him, eyes narrowed, and gives up on trying to read the Meta’s face. He’s got nowhere near enough brainpower to deal with bullshit mind games right now so he walks around to the other side of the bed, lies down (biting back a groan, _shit_ those bruises suck already), and passes the absolute _fuck_ out on top of the covers.

 

Wash opens his eyes to the sight of a scarred elbow two inches away from his nose.

The Meta is sprawled haphazardly across the bed, still asleep, breaths quiet and even, and Wash’s still-tired brain doesn’t so much grind to a halt as much as it refuses to have even started in the first place.

The Meta is absolutely not the same person that Wash knew. He’s grown and leveled out and taken care of himself and Wash is almost _jealous_ , if he’s honest with himself, because the Meta seems to have just carefully gone and sorted everything out and moved forward, living with his past instead of living _around_ it. It’s… impressive.

God, he really needs to stop being so hung up on this. Wash lets his eyes fall shut for a few more seconds and he savors the feeling of being in a bed and with a pillow, because he’s got a gut feeling that this is going to be the last bed they see for a while.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to the Meta looking at him over that scarred elbow, eyes half-open, and the proverbial knife that’s been sitting in Wash’s chest since day one digs in a little deeper, twists a little more.

He’s not really sure what to make of this situation so he does his best to sit up casually and ends up letting slip a groan because holy _shit_ , he feels like one giant bruise.

“Shoulder?” The Meta’s voice is husky with sleep but the – fuck, they slept _four and a half hours_ , on and off – makes him sound less strained.

“Fine.” He swings his legs over the side of the bed, cracks his back, rotates his arm to make a point. “How’s your wrist?”

The Meta makes a noncommittal noise, and the covers rustle behind Wash’s back. Wash stands up because this is starting to smell way too much like comfort for him to be… well, comfortable with it.

Wash stands up and yawns like a fucking monster, stretching his body and arching his back and _oh_ , damn, it feels _so_ good underneath the bruises. He heads for the bathroom and takes a piss and washes his faces and brushes his teeth and god fuckin’ _damn_ , he actually feels human for the first time in a week and a half. He’s feeling nearly positive by the time he changes back into the bodysuit and pulls pants and a tee on over it.

“I’m going to go get food,” he announces, and pulls on his boots, grabs the smaller jacket. He considers a pistol but takes a knife instead, because he’s not entirely sure how “civilian” civilian life is on Chorus, but he’ll be damned going anywhere unarmed.

“Gonna shower,” grunts the Meta, scratching at his stubble. “Bring coffee.”

 

Wash’s datapad directs him to a small cafe three blocks down, and he hunches into his jacket, keeps his head low in the early-morning drizzle. It’s a pretty small city, he’s found, but there are some tired-looking people out and about, and a couple of cars pass him.

The cafe is small but the food smells good, and the guy behind the counter makes pleasant small talk with him, gives him a couple of appreciative looks.

He gets a raised eyebrow and a snort from the Meta when he gets back with two coffees and two boxed-up sandwiches, one of which has a personal COM freq written on it with “Tjellek” and a smiley face underneath it. Life goes on, he supposes, even on a war-torn planet.

“Funny,” the Meta says dryly around half a mouthful of sandwich. “Thought of you flirting. _Old man_.”

“I’m not _that_ much older than you,” Wash says indignantly. “You’re, what, thirty–?”

“–four. Born in ‘22.”

“I was born in ‘20. I’m not _old_.”

“Colony?” the Meta asks, and sniffs at his coffee.

“Earth,” Wash says, and he realizes that they’ve never actually… talked about this. He doesn’t think he’s ever talked about this to _anyone_ , really. No one ever really cares where you’re from. Just where you’re going.

The Meta looks at him, hesitates, then looks away, takes a drink of his coffee.

“Harvest.”

“You’re from _Harvest?_ ”

The Meta nods slowly.

“Know what you’re gonna ask,” he says, and his voice is too quiet to be purely casual. “Remember bits. Too young to get it, but–” He shrugs. “–people screaming. Ride up elevator was hot. Crowded. People crying.” He pops open the lid on top of the coffee cup, then reaches for a to-go creamer that’s dwarfed by his hands. “Guess everyone has reason to join up.”

Wash looks down at the last few bites of his sandwich and takes a swig of coffee instead.

“I was supposed to go to Corbulo Academy,” he finally says. “Planet got glassed. Went to the academy on Luna instead.”

“And then Freelancer.”

“And then Freelancer,” Wash repeats. “Now we’re here, still trying to clean up that mess.”

The Meta makes a noise low in his throat that Wash isn’t really sure how to interpret, then finishes off his coffee and rolls his shoulders.

“BR?” he asks, and stands up to haul the duffel full of weapons onto the bed. “In here?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll deal with it.” Wash waves his hand and nearly gets his finger broken when the Meta tosses the rifle at him, and he glares in return. “I’m glad the DMR didn’t jam.”

“Me too.” The Meta sorts through the various pistols he’d taken from the Feds, and makes two piles before starting to empty out the duffel. “Take care of these–” He gestures to their assortment of weapons. “–eat, move out?”

“Sounds good,” Wash replies with a shrug.

It takes Wash a good twenty minutes to sort out the BR55, and he’s prepared to be extremely angry with himself for not having caught a potential jam when he finally figures out that it was a fault in the gun itself. A fault that he didn’t catch, but still technically not him being a slob. That’s what he gets for using defective black-market guns.

The DMR just needs a thorough cleaning, so Wash takes a break after sorting out the BR55 mess to try and stretch through some of his bruises. Probably a _smart_ idea, but definitely not a painless one. He hasn’t felt this beat-up since… well, probably since Tex kicked his ass halfway across Sidewinder.

“How’d you survive?”

“Hmm?”

“That fall, on Sidewinder. How–?”

The Meta rolls his eyes impressively.

“Not exactly a miracle.” He sets aside the rifle he’s holding. “Cut the tow-line. Car yanked me down hard, slammed against ice. Got lucky. Ice shelf broke fall, broke shitload of bones.” He rubs at his throat. “Used knife, armor lock to get back up.”

“ _Armor lock?_ ”

“Crawl up, lock armor, wait for pain to stop, do it again.” The Meta shrugs. “Amazing what you can do when you want to live.”

“Christ.” Wash runs a hand through his hair. “Meta, you’re unbelievable.”

The Meta gives him a long look before shrugging again.

 

 

The Meta goes to pick up more food once their guns are clean and Wash takes another shower just because he _can_ , and they eat in relative silence while re-packing their duffels and triple-checking that nothing gets left behind. The Meta pays with a credit chip that is most probably extremely fake, but Wash is pretty sure that no one on this planet actually gives a shit. Or maybe they do, and _he_ just doesn’t actually give a shit.

Their car is still covered in tiny droplets of dew from the morning’s foggy shower; the Meta tosses him the ignition chip once their duffels get dumped in the back, and Wash ignores the Meta’s smirk when he has to adjust the seat forward. The Meta buries himself in his datapad, checking local bulletins; Wash is about to start the car when the Meta grabs his forearm and stops him.

“What?”

“Blockade two klicks out of town,” the Meta says, voice harsh with irritation.

“And?”

Wash doesn’t really know what to do about this. Blockades usually mean searches, which could be bad news, but, you know, not actually knowing how Chorus _functions–_

“Armor on,” grunts the Meta, “helmet off.”

 

 

It’s a standard military checkpoint. Wash obligingly slows down when he sees the SLOW – CHECKPOINT AHEAD signs a klick before the line of stopped cars begins. They’re efficient, at least, and it only takes a few minutes per car. There’s a sign with a long list about the procedure, Please Remove Headgear, Please Prepare To Show Documentation, We Will Ask For A Search, and it’s riddled with bullet holes.

He mentally runs over what the Meta had told him to say (and avoid saying), and this should be easy. No harder than lying his way through Freelancer and the Recovery force, at any rate.

The checkpoint is small but there’s at least ten people there, all armed, all dressed like MPs, and Wash realizes once he sees the state of their weapons and armor that this has to be a _Republic_ blockade.

“What’s your business?” says the captain, once Wash crawls to a stop. Or, at least, Wash is assuming that’s a captain. It looks like he’s shooting for the right amount of pips.

“Just passing through. Trying to get to the coast.”

“I’m sure you are.” A charge crackles down the captain’s baton. Okay. Wash now has five contingency plans lined up for if – when – this goes south. “What’s in the back?”

“Supplies.” He can see out of the corner of his eye that the Meta is staring coolly at the captain.

“ _Mercs_.” The captain spits on the ground. “Never a straight fuckin’ answer.”

_Seven_ contingency plans.

“Like I said, we’re just passing through.” Fuck it. Wash is through playing complacent. “You know, the way people usually have to pass through one place to get to another place.”

“You working? You _contracted?_ ” The captain shoves Wash’s chin up with the baton, and Wash’s blood runs cold. He can see the Meta make an aborted sort of jerk forward but there’s no way in hell he’s breaking eye contact with this piece of human shit. “Rollja, Saxal, check their bags.”

The Meta snarls and pulls his pistol out when someone moves towards their car, and the sound of safeties clicking off practically echoes as the entire squad trains rifles on them.

“Relax,” Wash says, still not breaking eye contact, and reaches out to push the Meta’s pistol down. “ _Relax_.”

“Who’re you working for?” The captain leans forward, eyes narrowed, and shoves Wash’s chin up even further. Holy shit, he hasn’t felt his blood boil like this in fucking _ages_.

“That’s confidential.”

The captain cracks the electrified baton across Wash’s face.

He’s so fucking shocked that he can’t even do anything other than stare, open-mouthed; there’s a low snarling coming from the Meta like he’s some kind of fucking animal and _christ_ , what if this is all just some fucked-up fever dream and he’s still trying to find Epsilon–

A car honks from behind them, and the captain steps back, blinking, like he’s not sure of what he’s just done.

“Chorus would be better off without scum like you,” he sneers, and waves for his men to back down. “Get your _job_ done, and leave. This is our planet.”

He’s still _staring_ , still totally unable to comprehend _what the fuck_ just happened, and–

“Wash.”

He starts and looks back at his hands on the steering wheel, then pulls his helmet on with one hand, throws the car in gear, and doesn’t look back. It’s dead silent for about thirty seconds, save for the gravel under the tires and the sound of blood rushing in Wash’s ears.

“Pull over.”

“Why?”

“ _Pull over_.”

So Wash fucking pulls over because the Meta is exuding extremely scary vibes on the “murder” end of the scale, and when he turns to ask _again_ why they’re pulling over, the Meta _pulls off Wash’s fucking helmet_ , grabs his jaw in one of his massive hands, and tilts Wash’s head.

“Un-fucking-believable.”

The Meta takes a good, long look at what’ll definitely end up bruising on the side of his face. It’s still in the numb stage. He’s not looking forward to regaining feeling. The Meta drops his hand and lets out a short, sharp growl, then gets out of the car to dig for something in the back. Wash twists around to see him loading a magazine into the DMR.

“What are you doing?”

“Shooting the asshole,” the Meta replies calmly.

“Oh.”

It should probably worry Wash a lot more that he doesn’t actually give a shit. He reaches for his helmet and watches as the Meta lines up the shot with uncharacteristic patience, then fires five rounds. The adrenaline is still running through him, buzzing under his skin.

Wash stays silent for the rest of the drive.

 

“Why is there so much resentment towards mercs?”

The Meta looks down at him, then takes a seat against a rock and pulls off his helmet, runs his hand through his mussed hair.

“Both sides hate the other for hiring mercs.” He strips off a gauntlet and yawns, jaw cracking, and scratches at his throat before grunting irritatedly and reaching for his datapad.

`The Federal Army didn’t always have an advantage over the New Republic. Honestly, the New Republic’s big rebellion is what forced the Feds to train their men better, and to do that, they hired mercs. Then the Republic started hiring mercs to boost their numbers, but obviously neither side likes us much because it’s _their_ planet and _their_ fight. Now it’s all a huge circlejerk. If you don’t pick a side – or at least pretend to pick a side – you’re fucked. Why do you think so many refugees end up at mercenary bases? Why do you think there are even so many mercs in the first place? I can tell you right now, not everyone’s from off-planet.`

“Wow,” Wash says, eloquently. “This planet is fucked.”

The Meta huffs.

`When there’s a mess, everyone wants a solution.`

“Great,” Wash mutters. The Meta doesn’t need to name the particular solution he’s thinking of. “I’ll take first watch.”

“No,” the Meta says abruptly, and stands. “Can’t– sleep.” He doesn’t meet Wash’s eyes, but pointedly reaches back to touch the base of his neck.

“Yeah,” Wash croaks, then clears his throat. “Yeah. Wake me up in three, then.”

What a pair they make.

 

 

The Meta twitches again in his sleep, brows furrowing even deeper, and makes a quiet noise. It’s getting worse.

Wash is on watch but he hasn’t strictly been _watching_ anything except the Meta for a good ten minutes now, because unless he is incredibly mistaken, the Meta is having a nightmare.

One of _those_ nightmares.

Wash squirms mentally. This is… Well. This is not exactly an ideal situation. He reaches out, hesitates, then gently pushes the Meta’s shoulder.

“Hey.” No response. The Meta’s shoulders are wound tight as a spring. “Hey. Wake up.”

Still no response. He moves his hand, feeling awkward as hell and trying to think up some kind of less awkward alternative, when the Meta jerks awake, hand shooting out towards Wash. He’s too dumbstruck to move and for a split second he thinks this is it, this is how he’s going out, but the Meta’s hand just finds that small, unarmored gap on his shoulder, and holds _tight_.

The Meta’s eyes are panicked and unfocused and holy _shit_ , this is the worst Wash has seen him in ages. Years.

“It’s okay,” he manages, “you’re awake.”

“Wash,” the Meta croaks out, and his voice is like gravel. “You’re–” He closes his eyes, tight, and Wash realizes that the Meta is trembling.

_Fuck_. This is, like, at least fifty times more intimate than anything he signed up for.

“It’s okay,” Wash finally repeats, and carefully puts a hand on the Meta’s shoulder in return, grounding him, letting him get his bearings. “Breathe.”

The Meta blinks rapidly and his eyes are clear when he focuses on Wash’s face, jaw tight, and he slowly removes his hand, clears his throat, breaks eye contact.

“Might as well get moving if we’re up,” the Meta grunts, and Wash takes the hand off of his shoulder.

“Right,” he says, “yeah. We should… pack up. Are you–?”

The cold look in the Meta’s eyes cuts him off.

 

 

Wash checks their progress while the Meta recalibrates his armor. They’ve been mostly following the sort of border zone, weaving around any outposts and checkpoints they can avoid, and trying to stay in neutral territory as much as possible. He flicks through to the overlay that shows who controls which towns, and their route has taken them pretty squarely through the middle.

“Looks like, gonna head into Fed territory.” The map distorts around the Meta’s white-gauntleted hand as he reaches around Wash to draw a line.

“We’ll see,” Wash says. “We should be able to get some intel here.” He pauses. “Assuming no one fucks up like last time.”

“Not the one who fucked up.”

“What, so that whole mess was _my_ fault entirely?”

“Missed easy target. Dumbass mistake.”

Wash’s temper flares dangerously. He is _so_ not in the fucking mood for this, not after those two fucking checkpoints yesterday to cap off the past week.

“Big words, coming from the person who made the biggest fucking possible uproar trying to take out _two guards_ ,” he snaps.

“Least I _took them out_.”

“Fuck you.”

“I bet.”

There’s something cold and detached in the Meta’s smirk. Wash doesn’t rise to the bait.

 

 

Wash wakes up completely disoriented and suddenly, overwhelmingly lost.

He’s got _no fucking idea_ what he’s doing.

Like, as far as all of his dumb-and-probably-borderline-suicidal ideas go, this one probably takes the fucking cake. Seriously, _what the fuck_. He abandoned his team to partner up with someone who not only tried to kill him on multiple occasions, but whose experience with AI makes _his_ experience with AI look like a mild headache, and together they’re trying to track down one of the men responsible for fucking up the lives of all of his friends. He doesn’t even have actual confirmation of whether the Counselor is even on this fucking planet.

He’s–– well. He’s not even entirely sure this is _real_.

The Meta keeps shooting him odd looks as they pack up and head for the Fed outpost that’s less than three hundred klicks away now and Wash steadfastly ignores him, steadfastly refuses to meet his eyes.

It takes him the entire day to finally find a voice for what’s in his head. An entire day of jittery anxiety, layers of static between him and reality, and deep down he knows this is either going to turn into a massive downswing or get explosive.

“What are we doing?” he mutters when they’re camped for the night, staring down at his gauntlets. “What am _I_ doing?”

“Hmm?”

“None of this makes _sense_ ,” Wash snaps. “What the hell am I doing here?”

“Volunteered,” the Meta grunts., and the sarcasm in his voice makes something ring in Wash’s ears.

“You biased me. You told me all of that–” He waves a hand, sharp and angry. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate setup?”

“Don’t have fucking patience for setup,” the Meta snaps at him. “Don’t care. All the shit from the past? _Don’t care_. Just want to end Counselor.”

“The Counselor, right. The Counselor, who might not even be on the goddamn planet.”

“Not forcing you to be here,” the Meta snarls, and if he still had his voice, it would have been a yell. “Can fuck off if you want.”

“So you can track me down later and _take care_ of me, like all our other old teammates?”

“The _fuck_ is your problem?”

“ _Everything!_ ” Wash can hear his voice climbing in pitch. “I don’t–”

“Washington––”

Wash fucking _snaps_. The dam doesn’t break, it fucking disintegrates.

“They were my family,” Wash snarls, fists shaking. “And they’re _dead_ , every one of them, because of _you_. I hated you for what you did, and I mourned for you.” He’s seething, practically blind with it. “You were gone. _They_ were gone. I was _alone_. I was–” He runs a hand through his hair, knows it’s gonna stand on end after that, blinks back the angry wetness in his eyes. “I was _so_ fucked up, you know that? But I made it. I survived. I was _okay_. And now everyone’s coming back from the grave and I don’t know what to think any more. And I’m–– I’m supposed to just be _fine_ with all of this?” A hysterical laugh bubbles up out of his chest. “And I don’t even know if this is actually real, or if it’s still Epsilon in my head. So forgive me if I’m not exactly one hundred percent on board here.”

The Meta stares at him, face completely broken open, and Wash turns away. _Fucking_ melodramatic. The tiny part of him that speaks in the Blues’ voices is teasing him.

“I’m going on watch,” he mutters, voice breaking, and grabs his helmet. “Get some sleep.”

“If there was a way–” The Meta’s voice is quiet but Wash pauses anyways, five steps away. “If I could find words. Guilt, anger. Pain. _I_ caused. All I can do, work to fix it. Help people.” Wash is holding his helmet so tightly he thinks his knuckles might pop. “Wash–”

“Don’t,” he says, throat bone-dry. “Don’t.”

“ _Wash_.”

The Meta’s hand lands on his shoulder and what the _fuck_ , he’s still not used to the Meta having learned how to be _quiet–_

“This? _My_ crusade. Asking, you with me – selfish.” The Meta’s eyes are steady and clear like they used to be, before–– before. “You’re hurt. Need time, need your friends. Don’t blame you for not wanting this. Won’t blame you for leaving. Go, if it’s what you need.”

“I can’t,” Wash says, throat tight. “I can’t leave… this. This is my responsibility. This is my loose end.”

The Meta’s eyebrows furrow.

“It’s not,” he says slowly. “Not… none of this–” He gestures. “–not you.”

“How? _How?_ This is all on me. I didn’t find the Counselor, and now he’s got his claws on a whole _planet_ of people.”

“Wash,” the Meta says, low, “look at me.” Wash refuses to meet his eyes. “ _Look_ at me. Counselor’s fault. No one else’s. Blame him, blame UNSC, blame–” He waves an exaggerated hand. “–blame _me_ if you need to. Not your fault. Not your responsibility. _Never_ your responsibility.”

Wash stares at him. The Meta steps back, clears his throat, looks away.

A full two minutes pass.

“I‘m sorry,” Wash mutters.

The Meta turns his head. Wash can see his own reflection between his hands, gilded.

“S’okay,” the Meta finally says. “Understand.”

“I was out of line.” Wash doggedly plows on, determined to finally fucking get it off his chest. “I… had no right to snap at you like that. Or to dump my issues on you.” He fiddles with the seal lining his helmet. “I know it wasn’t you back–– then. Not _really_ you. I can’t blame you for any of that. Sorry.”

“S’okay,” the Meta repeats, and the set of his shoulders is easy. “Really. Understand. Thanks for apology.”

Wash nods at him silently, then looks down at his helmet. His reflection is warped in the dull glint of his visor, face twisted.

“Well, I’m– I’ll take first watch.”

 

 

The outpost is a short, early-morning drive away. They find a perfect spot to camp, a wide, flat, tree-covered hill knotted with thick underbrush; Wash has a view of the entire base, _and_ a square klick radius around it.

“How bad are you with this thing? Just... out of curiosity.” Wash lowers the DMR to look over his shoulder. “Actually, no. I don’t think I want to know.”

The Meta huffs at him.

“Shot that captain, didn’t I?”

“See, I would’ve _killed_ him.” Wash kicks a few rocks away and then gets prone.

“Nearly got _yourself_ killed mouthing off.”

“You know, I was pretty sure you’d gotten your throat shot out, not your eyes. I’m _Washington_ , not York.”

The Meta grunts and kicks his thigh.

“Doing it again. Never learn.”

Wash reaches back and smacks the Meta’s shin.

“You’re supposed to be spotting me. So _spot me_.”

The Meta just chuckles and shrugs sardonically. Fuck him for making a _gesture_ look sardonic.

Wash exhales and looks down the scope again, and wonders just when the hell this whole casual banter thing started. Or, well, started anew. Lately it’s felt like he’s got two modes: angry yelling and spiteful insults. Maybe this dumbass roadtrip will teach him how to express more than just two emotions.

Well, he’ll burn that bridge when he gets there. For now, he’s got a base to infiltrate.

 

 

Two patrols leave at 3am. One pair heads northeast out from the base and Wash tracks them diligently through the DMR’s scope, waits until one of them trails behind to fire off two shots to the back of the head. The other one doesn’t even notice before Wash takes him out.

The patrol heading towards them has moved into Wash’s blind spot so he turns to the Meta and signals for radio silence, turns back to keep watching the base, and hopes to _god_ that the Meta actually has his back. He can’t hear anything and his trackers aren’t going off (yet) but he can’t exactly turn around to check where the hell the Meta’s gone.

“Patrol down.” The Meta’s voice sounds harsh over the radio, but it’s quiet. “Gonna sweep for active camo.”

“Copy.”

Wash is not a sniper. He’s an excellent fucking marksman, thank you, but he just doesn’t have the temperament to camp for hours and hours on end, watching a shitty base in the middle of nowhere, waiting for someone to poke their head out.

The _point_ here is that someone better be fuckin’ leaving that base within the next fifteen minutes, or Wash is going to go stir-crazy. At least _someone_ has to have noticed two patrols not checking in. Their original plan – Lure Out All The Guys With Guns Then Go Inside – seems painfully boring and not as risky as it probably should be.

“Hey Meta,” he says, “what if we sped things up a little?”

A grunt.

“What, end up like last time? No thanks.”

“We’re gonna–” Wash freezes for half a millisecond then fires two shots. “Active camo on your six, few meters out, I think I got–”

“Wounded him,” the Meta finishes for him, breaths uneven, and Wash watches him neatly snap someone’s neck as the active camo fizzles out. “Headed back.”

“I’m not picking up any activity from the base,” Wash says.

“Scout in camo might’ve warned.” The Meta’s footsteps are nearly silent next to him. “Should probably move.”

“Think we can take the whole base now?” Wash stands up and swaps his DMR for a pistol. “There’s, what, five down so far? There can’t be that many more at this tiny outpost.”

“Relax,” the Meta says. “Antsy. Don’t be. Circle down to east side, enter there, yeah?”

“Sounds fine. Sync?”

“Sync.”

 

 

Wash realizes he’s very prone to putting out of mind just how fucking scary the Meta is. Even scarier, now that he’s learned how to be sneaky. For every one person Wash took out, the Meta took out three. Violently.

They save a stammering, sweating tech for last, who reassures them that there’s been no alarm, no one’s called it in, no reinforcements are coming. Wash pistol-whips him, and a crack that sounds suspiciously like a fractured skull echoes through the room.

The Meta pulls off his helmet, scratches at his throat, and hums in satisfaction before leaning over one of the consoles and pulling out his datapad.

“Wounded?” the Meta asks absently, fingers ghosting across the terminal.

“No,” Wash snorts back, half-offended. “Anything useful in there so far?”

The Meta deadeyes him.

“Nice desktop background. Local Grifball scores. Selfies.” He rolls his eyes and snorts. “Need more time to access coms. Especially high-level. Using a decryption program Sam wrote for mercs.”

“Any updates from them? The mercs, I mean.”

“Not really.” The Meta shrugs one shoulder. “Know your friends went back with Republic to a base.” A pause. “Accessing coms.” The Meta frowns and leans closer to the terminal.

“What?” Wash pulls off his helmet and sets it down next to the Meta’s, avoiding a puddle of already-congealing blood, and moves to look at the terminal.

“Loads of high-level coms,” the Meta says, voice low. “Heavily encrypted. Between unknown and some merc. _Could_ be Counselor. Same metadata tags. Too encrypted to crack without serious tech, but at least, recognize same ID, maybe. This–” The Meta taps his datapad. “–decrypt it, maybe get frequency, track location.”

“So we might have a line to the Counselor.”

“Maybe.” The Meta’s jaw tightens. “Could be a wild goose chase.”

“A lead is a lead.” Wash shrugs. “Not like we’ve got anything better to go off of right now, anyways. How much longer for decryption?”

“Day, maybe,” the Meta replies, and his fingers go back to dancing across the console. “Finish data uplink, get piggybacked into this system. Decryption can run on datapad.”

“That’s useful,” Wash muses.

“Thank Sam.”

Wash scratches absently at his jaw and watches the incomprehensible strings of data spool across the terminal screen. He’s really hoping this doesn’t take too long. The soldiers that only got knocked out might wake up in an hour or two.

The Meta leans back with a satisfied set to his shoulders and puts away his datapad.

“Ready,” he says, and then frowns at Wash, reaches a hand out. Wash automatically steps back. “Got–” The Meta gestures to the side of his face. “Someone’s blood.”

Wash looks down at his gauntlets and sure enough, there’s tacky blood clinging to the shields on one hand.

“Oh, _gross_. Let’s get out of here.”

 

 

Wash is fucking _ready_ to be out of his armor by the time they reach the car. Partially so that he can deck the Meta.

“No one is going to do _anything_ ,” he snaps. “No government agency, no committee, no _bureaucrat_ will ever go out of their way to start these trials again. The UNSC wants this dead and buried.”

“ _I_ don’t,” the Meta snarls back. “Don’t care about trials.”

“What do you _think_ is going to happen if we bring this to light? A nice show trial and a life sentence for the Counselor? Because I’ve got news for you, if–”

“Told you already, dense _ass_ , it’s for _me_. Not UNSC. Not this planet. Want _my_ justice.”

“I wanted my justice too,” Wash spits through gritted teeth, “and I ended up being hunted down by a homicidal ex-partner who’d already killed my _other_ ex-partners.”

“You of all people should know I couldn’t control it.” The Meta’s fists are clenched, back straight, and Wash thinks this conversation has gone on far too long already. Especially because the Meta is absolutely right.

“Meta, the _point_ here–”

“ _Don’t–_ ” The Meta slams his hands down on the hood of the car. “Don’t call me that.”

Wash’s frustration u-turns straight into bewilderment.

“ _What?_ ”

“Not the Meta any more.” He takes a few steps towards Wash and their armor is nearly touching, shields starting to snap against the air. “ _Don’t_ call me that. Fucking reminder. Sick of it.”

It takes Wash a few seconds to recover.

“You should’ve said something earlier.” Like, weeks earlier. _Fuck_.

“Should’ve.”

“M?” he tries, echoing what Lucía had called him. It feels weird in his mouth, though, like it doesn’t belong, so he takes a breath and takes a risk. “Maine.”

Wash is pretty sure that he’s the only person in the world capable of reading into the tiniest shifts and tells that that hulking white armor lets slip, but it still takes him by surprise to see _Maine’s_ surprise written so clearly in his posture, followed immediately by loose relief that Wash isn’t quite sure what to do with.

“Maine.”

 

 

Someone’s datapad beeps shrilly, audible even over the ‘Hog’s engines. It’s not _Wash’s_ datapad, that’s for sure, so he twists around to dig through Maine’s pack for him.

Maine. _Maine_.

The fact that it really didn’t take any getting used to speaks volumes. Wash doesn’t feel like looking too hard at that just yet.

There’s a popup glowing softly that reads _decryption complete – open files?_ on top of several older, greyed-out unopened comms and Wash taps the icon, scowling when he’s prompted to scan his finger for access.

“Well, decryption’s done on that comm,” he says over the wind and the engine, and Maine looks at him with a pleased look in his eyes.

“Switch,” Maine says.

He pulls over on a stretch of gravel near some kind of fen and Wash takes the opportunity to crack his back and stretch and yawn like a monster. They’ve gone three days without seeing another human being, and they’ve got at least another day’s drive until the service road they’re on merges with a civilian roadway. Wash isn’t complaining, though. He’s enjoyed the quiet.

“Should we–?” Maine lifts an eyebrow. “I mean, if you get some info out of there, and it turns out we have to head somewhere different…” Wash makes a vague sort of gesture. Maine shrugs.

“Need to get to the roadways regardless,” he says, and picks up the datapad.

Maine’s silence is companionable and warm, now, and every time Wash spares a glance at him he’s still got his nose buried deep in that datapad.

By the time they set trackers and make camp for the night, though, frustration is rolling off of Maine in waves. He keeps setting down the datapad, picking it back up, scowling, and setting it down again. It gets to the point where his angry fiddling just _annoys_ Wash.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

Maine frowns at him, then picks the datapad back up.

`It looks like the first ID _might_ match the ID on that voice sample. I’m not entirely sure, but it seems so. Something is wrong with the second ID, though. I want to ID that so we have a lead to work off of, but it keeps redirecting the ID to Lethbridge Industrial, and the COM signature isn’t theirs. It doesn’t make sense.`

“Lethbridge Industrial?” Wash echoes. Something at the back of his mind is pinging insistently, but he can’t make the connection.

`They’re one of the UNSC’s sources for armor. I thought it might be trying to ID the actual _unit_ for me, but it’s just a clean redirect straight to the Lethbridge public COM channels. They’re unreachable from Chorus, obviously. I think something might have gone wrong with the decryption.```

“So this was useless,” Wash says, fighting hard to keep bitterness out of his voice.

“No,” Maine growls, and there’s frustration evident in every single line of his body when he throws the datapad down with a thump into the dirt. “Info all there – date, time, location of transmission. Just won’t decrypt for trackable ID. What the _fuck_.”

Wash shrugs. He was never too huge on the tech stuff, so he’s not even going to offer two useless cents.

“Well, at least we’re somewhere.”

Maine grunts in response. They don’t talk for the rest of the evening.

 

 

Wash realizes two days into it that Maine has hit a low. It’s subtle, at first – he doesn’t talk as much, his responses are shorter and snippier – but then Maine starts having nightmares. And then Maine stops sleeping.

It’s none of Wash’s business. It’s _seriously_ none of his business and a part of him feels awful for it, but he lets Maine ride it out on his own.

So Wash ignores the way Maine’s eyes are very much open, glassy, when he goes to “wake” him for watch, ignores the way Maine gets extremely clinical and too precise about everything he does, ignores the way Maine’s breaths are ragged and uneven from the nightmares when he slips up and falls asleep.

Being back on the edge of civilized territory means their nighttime camps are at even higher risk of getting stepped on by some patrol, civilian or otherwise, and by the time a week passes, Wash has grudgingly accepted the fact that he’s just plain worried about Maine. Like, full-on mother hen worried. Worried about whether Maine can handle being on watch, whether Maine is going to accidentally let something slip while he’s on watch, whether Maine is going to… do something while he’s on watch.

He’d probably be preoccupied about how weird that is, but he’s too fucking _worried._ He’s been there. He knows that there are lows and there are _lows_ , and he knows instinctively that this is one of _those_ lows.

Wash gets jerked out of a nightmare on the ninth night, opens his eyes to Maine’s hand on his shoulder and a tight, tired smile that doesn’t reach Maine’s eyes at all.

“Do you need anything?” Wash blurts – mumbles, really – after it’s been ten minutes and it’s evident that neither of them is going to sleep. “I’m not blind, you know.”

Maine crosses his arms tightly and leans back against the wheel of the car. The dim moonlight makes the scars on his neck stand out even more harshly.

“It’ll pass,” Maine finally says. “Sleep.” He nods his head down towards where Wash had been sleeping.

And because he’s tired and disoriented and Maine’s hand had been pleasantly solid on his shoulder, Wash lies back down.

 

 

Maine directs them to a tiny town at the crossroads of two major civilian roadways, and the edge is gone from his voice. Wash doesn’t know if it’s an upswing or just the end of the downswing but either way, he’s glad to see Maine feeling better. Or seemingly better, at least.

The receptionist who gives them a room with two beds is pleasant and chatty, almost painfully civilian in her openness. Maine even manages a tired smile for her before heading down the hallway, shouldering his way through the tiny doorway, dropping his packs on the ground, and immediately passing out on one of the beds.

Maine’s got the right idea. Wash takes some time to shower before sleeping and he _tries_ to strip his gun afterwards, he really does, but he’s clean and there’s a big empty bed with his name on it, so he sighs and topples over and he’s asleep the second his head hits the pillow.

 

When he wakes up, the sun is setting, and he knows he’ll be out like a light again in a few hours. His body is at the point where he’ll take sleep anywhere he can get it.

He stretches and pops his back _really_ goddamn satisfyingly, and sits up to see Maine sitting at the table, head bowed. He doesn’t make any sort of reaction as Wash crosses the room to take a piss and wash his face, and he hasn’t moved an inch by the time Wash comes out of the bathroom.

Well, that’s looking bleak. He carefully, obviously walks up to the table. Maine turns his head a fraction of an inch to look blearily at him.

“Migraine,” he rasps.

“Ah.” Wash clears his throat and scrambles for something to say. “I’ll… go check on the car. Give you some peace.”

He pats Maine’s shoulder awkwardly and then, before he can think about how potentially _monumentally_ stupid an idea it is, he rubs a small circle into Maine’s back.

Maine lets out a slow sigh so Wash snatches his hand back and turns away to leave, but Maine gestures vaguely at him to stop.

“‘S’okay,” he mumbles. “Lucía does it. Helps.”

Wash is _pretty sure_ he knows what Maine is implying, and it’s not like he’s unwilling to do it, but this is– he can’t _not_ be awkward about this. Christ.

“Lights off,” Wash calls, and the room dims. “Uh–”

“Fuck’s _sake_.” Maine’s head drops against the desk with a quiet thunk. “Do something or leave. Don’t care which.”

So Wash takes the goddamn copout.

“Fine.”

He leaves, both as huffily and as quietly as possible. “Checking on the car” was a dumbshit excuse and both of them know it, but migraines are migraines and Wash doesn’t want to make anything worse.

So he checks on the car, checks that everything is okay and fine and functioning, sits in the driver’s seat for a solid twenty minutes doing absolutely fucking nothing on his datapad.

The sun sets quickly, and Wash can actually feel the warmth leaving his face as he watches it sink behind the hills. Chorus is weird as hell. The chill that comes down every night eventually starts biting at him through his jacket so he sighs and heads back for the room, fingers crossed that Maine is either functional or getting there. He’s really not the best at this whole taking care of people thing.

The lights are still off when he quietly opens the door, and Maine is still slumped over the desk. His breaths are heavy but not sleep-heavy, and Wash’s stomach twists in sympathy. It’s been a while since his last _real_ migraine, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten just how awful they are.

He wants to go on a food run but Maine’s probably nauseous as hell, if his own experiences are anything to go by, so he stands awkwardly behind Maine and chews his bottom lip.

“Food?” he asks cautiously, and Maine makes a strangled sort of noise that Wash interprets as a no, and plans on ignoring anyways, if he can find something appropriately bland to eat. “Okay. I’ll… be back, then.”

 

 

There’s a slightly sketchy-looking store and a deli across the roadway, so Wash tucks a pistol under his jacket and makes the short trek. It’s not big, but it’s well-furnished, and Wash takes the opportunity to stock up on shit they might need later. Antiseptic, energy bars, MREs, painkillers.

The owner – or, at least, Wash assumes it’s the owner – stares at him with narrowed eyes the entire time he’s picking out food, and by the time he reaches the counter, Wash is very much on edge.

“You a merc?”

“Yes,” Wash says cautiously, and moves so that he’s got easy access to his pistol and to the door. That tone of voice left no room for anything but honesty, regardless of what kind of outcome honesty would bring.

“You open for a job?” Wash is taken completely by surprise. Something on his face must be showing hesitation. “A short one, I promise.”

“I–” Well. There’s an idea. “I’d need to talk to my partner.”

“I’ll pay you well,” they say, shrugging. “Just– we get raiders here, from the town over.”

“I see,” Wash says, because he’s not really sure what else to say. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Oklar,” they reply, and tuck hair behind their ear. “I’ll be here in the morning, if you want to take me up on it. Talk numbers.” They shrug again. “If not, no harm, no foul.”

“I suppose I’ll let you know, then.”

“On the house,” Oklar says, nodding at the bag of food and meds. “Think about it, yeah?”

“Thank you.” Wash blinks in surprise, instantly suspicious, and cautiously picks up the bag off the counter.

“Not a lot of people been friendly to you, I bet.” Oklar crosses their arms. “I swear, this isn’t some kind of setup. Ask around town, everyone’ll tell you we’ve got raiders killing folks just for breathing.”

“Yeah, people on Chorus don’t seem to like mercs very much,” Wash mutters. “Thank you, Oklar.”

They shrug yet again. Wash suddenly realizes just how bland the body language of every other person is, compared to Maine.

“Think about it. Offer’ll still be here in the morning.”

 

Wash has to wait in a twelve-person line for real food, and there’s a hushed nervousness about everyone that’s making him– well, _nervous_. The person who ends up serving him is young, maybe twenty or so, and there’s a deep-seated mistrust in the way his eyes never leave Wash’s face.

The walk back to the motel is tense because the highway has deadened _completely_. The lights are dimmed in every building he can see, and the only people he passes are huddled together and hurried. There’s either truth in what Oklar had told him, or there’s something extremely fucking fishy going on in this town.

Or both.

With his luck, it’s both.

When he gets back, the shower is running, so he can only assume that Maine’s migraine has faded to being at least somewhat manageable. He’s picking at the very last bits of leftovers by the time Maine comes out of the bathroom, looking flushed and tired but lucid.

“I brought some food,” Wash says, “and a job offer.”

Maine raises his eyebrows and takes the container Wash is holding out.

“Just… rice and grains, tofu. Nothing flavorful.” Maine squeezes his shoulder in gratitude, and sits down on a bed.

“Job?”

“The owner of a store across the highway said this town has an issue with raiders,” Wash explains. “I don’t know exactly what they want, but they implied–”

“Murder.”

“Yep.”

Maine shrugs noncommittally.

“Pay’s good?”

“So they said. I told them I needed to talk to my partner first.” Wash cracks his back and sighs in relief. “So. Are you up for it?”

“Extra money,” Maine muses around a mouthful. “Not a bad idea. Raiders, amateurs, not trained. Dirtbags. Taken ‘em out before.”

“We can go talk to them in the morning.” Wash finally gives up on the barely-there crumbs in his takeout box and tosses it cleanly into the trash can. “The store’s right across the roadway, and they said they’d be there tomorrow.”

“Think I’m gonna sleep.” Maine gestures at his food and says, “Thanks, Wash.”

“Yeah.”

 

Wash wakes up the second Maine whispers his name. There’s rain pounding against the roof and a low rumble that Wash takes for thunder, at first, but it lasts way too long to be the storm.

“What’s happening?” he croaks quietly. He can barely make out the shape of Maine shrugging at him in the dark.

“Close to town,” Maine murmurs back. “Maybe mortar fire.”

“Should we bail?” Wash asks, and at that second, the rumbling cuts out. Maine looks over at him after half a minute. “Go to sleep,” Wash finally says. “I’ll keep watch for an hour and wake you, if anything.”

 

He ends up just going back to sleep after the hour’s over, once he’s triple-checked that their four door alarms are primed and that he’s got loaded weapons in arm’s reach and a knife under his pillow.

It’s still raining in the morning, dull and grey, and Maine looks better than Wash has seen him in days. Whatever had happened overnight, he’s glad that Maine seems on track to being okay. They don’t talk over breakfast but the silence is companionable instead of tense, and Maine scrolls through his datapad with absent-mindedness rather than absence.

The roadway is ominously quiet, and Wash has a sinking feeling that it’s got nothing to do with the rain.

The door chimes as it slides open, and Oklar raises their head from where they’re bent over the countertop. They look like they didn’t sleep at all.

“Hello,” Wash says carefully.

Oklar nods at him, and then looks over to study Maine’s face.

“This is your partner?” they ask.

“This is– Maine.”

Maine nods, almost politely.

“Are you up to speed on what’s going on here?” Oklar asks, and their voice is hoarse with fatigue.

“You didn’t exactly give me details,” Wash prompts. Oklar shrugs.

“How much do you know?” they ask Maine again, and Maine’s eyes flick over to Wash before making a familiar gesture at his throat.

To Wash’s surprise, Oklar’s posture changes immediately and his hands move in a fluid set of gestures. Maine raises his eyebrows, and then responds in kind. Their conversation lasts for a full minute, and even though Wash knows how to read all of Maine’s body language down to a T, this is a language he _doesn’t_ know.

“We’re in,” Maine finally says out loud to Wash, and then names a sum. Wash is pretty sure his eyebrows fly up into his hairline, and he whistles.

“No objections,” he says. That’s a damn impressive figure. “I didn’t know you knew sign language.”

“Not everyone knows me like you do,” Maine replies, and there’s a wry grin curling his mouth. “Need USL for them.” He turns back to Oklar and they have a much shorter exchange. This one ends with Maine narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“The situation changed,” Oklar says tiredly, addressing both of them. “Literally overnight. There was a raid, but–” They sigh and drag a hand over their face. “So far, three families have reported missing people. That means they’re hostages. We should be getting ransom notifications soon.”

Wash looks over at Maine for a good thirty seconds, gauges his reaction.

“This… changes our approach,” he says.

“I know. The families have ransom money ready, just in case.”

_Christ_. This planet makes Project Freelancer look like a healthy environment. Maine puts a hand on his forearm before he can even come up with a way to respond to that, and signs at Oklar again. They nod in response, eyes heavy.

“I’ll give you the coordinates to their hideout. We know where it is, but we don’t get mercs coming through often enough to do anything about it.” They hesitate. “Last people we hired, one of ‘em died.” Wash raises his eyebrows. “Well, it was an accident. Kinda the other merc’s fault, from what they all said.” They smile nervously.

“Well?” Maine looks over at him. “Still in?”

“If I managed to survive _you_ trying to kill me, I’ll survive a couple of overdramatic bandits,” Wash says blithely. Oklar doesn’t manage to hide the confusion on their face. “It’s a deal.”

 

 

The “base” is a few klicks off of the highway, south of the town and up in the hills, so they ditch their car on the roadside for a quick getaway and head out from there on foot. Maine’s shoulders are easy and his stride is even, purposeful, and Wash is glad. Hopefully it’s the mark of an upswing.

There’s an increasing amount of trash strewn on the ground the closer they get to the coordinates Oklar gave them – empty ammo boxes, half-decomposed carcasses of small animals, tattered clothing, broken guns. Wash is truly glad for his armor’s filtering system. The hills are carpeted with a dense forest, something vaguely pine-ish, and the underbrush isn’t thick enough to cause too much of a problem, but it’s enough to provide decent cover.

Wash takes in as much as he can through the scope on his DMR and tries his best to get a head count. So far he can see about eight people, and–

“What’re they doing?” Maine grunts.

“What?”

“Said, what’re they doing?”

“They’re just standing there, talking,” Wash mutters back.

Maine whuffs at him and holsters his rifle, then cracks his neck and shakes out his arms.

“What are _you_ doing?” Wash asks, apprehensive. Maine just gives him– well, it’s the posture equivalent of a smirk, and then he heads down towards the clearing where the bandits’ den (pigsty, really) is before Wash can even sputter an objection. He’s walking with the kind of swagger in his step that Wash hasn’t seen for _years_. Granted, he can tell that this is all put-on, but it still tugs at him to see pieces of the old Maine shining through.

“Would you look at this,” one of the bandits jeers, spitting on the ground, “merc trash.”

Maine ignores him and walks right up to the biggest person there, who’s leaning against a stack of crates. He’s more heavyset than Maine is but he’s got none of Maine’s height, and Wash is morbidly excited to see how fast he’ll go down.

“You’re outta your league, shitstain,” the heavyset bandit taunts.

“Nobody messes with The Brick,” someone shouts sycophantically. Good _lord_. These people sound like a bunch of idiots who decided to become _swashbuckling bandits_ after watching a trashy b-list vid.

“I’m gonna give you one chance to scurry away with your tail between your legs,” says _The Brick_ , and jesus _what the fuck_ , that’s so fucking awful, “or if you want, I can skin you live here and now.”

He cracks his knuckles and Wash almost considers being sorry for him, _almost_ , because he telegraphs like an amateur before pulling his fist back for a punch. Unfortunately for the bandit – seriously, he refuses to consider The Brick as a valid nickname – Wash knows _exactly_ what’s coming next.

The bandit’s fist connects with Maine’s palm, and Wash hears a crunch followed directly by a scream. It’s too dark to see it clearly but from what he can tell, Maine’s managed to crush most of the bones in the bandit’s fist. Maine tightens his grip, then smacks his hand – still wrapped around the bandit’s – right into the bridge of his nose. Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

“Guess you could say, went down like a sack of bricks,” Maine muses over the com channel to Wash as everyone is gaping at him, and Wash can’t help but burst into laughter.

God, he doesn’t remember the last time he laughed this open and this genuinely. It’s been fucking _years_.

“That was terrible,” Wash finally manages, still stifling laughter, and swaps his DMR for the BR before heading in towards the camp. Maine chuckles back at him. There are panicked shouts echoing through the clearing, and Wash picks off three bandits with armfuls of what looks like assorted loot trying to haul ass away from Maine. Maine, who’s slowly amassing a pile of unconscious-or-worse bodies around him.

“Is that it?” Wash asks once they’re the only ones left standing.

Maine shrugs and shoves aside someone’s limb before heading further into the camp. Wash follows him more slowly, rifle still shouldered, and keeps an eye on his motion trackers.

The camp is a rough circle made up of makeshift huts and deteriorating tents, and it’s _filthy_. There’s a firepit in the center that’s still roaring, throwing flickering shadows everywhere and dulling the starlight. Wash does a quick count of the huts, and–

“Something’s not right.”

“Not enough people.” Maine’s voice is low.

“There must be a patrol or a raiding party out,” Wash says, frustration mounting. “And we didn’t even bother setting trackers out there.” Maine snarls back wordlessly. “Okay. I’ll start here and sweep clockwise, you do the opposite, and we’ll meet eventually. We need to get those hostages out of this _hole_. Sync?”

“Sync,” Maine replies, and pulls out his pistol.

Wash gets through five hovels – rotting food, filthy weapons, and a _decomposed rabbit_ , in one – before he finds them.

He pushes aside the tent flap and finds two grubby (but thankfully live) kids. Fucking _kids_. Well, one looks like he’s in his early twenties, maybe not even, and there’s a girl who looks no older than six nestled in the crook of his arm. Wash lowers his rifle.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, and raises one open hand. “We need to leave. I’m getting you back to your families.”

“Are you a soldier?” the girl asks, yawning, with the kind of innocence only a child can manage.

“Why should I trust you?” Wash gets nailed with a narrow-eyed glare, and he suddenly realizes that he saw this kid the night before the town got raided.

“I’m a–” He sighs. “I’m a mercenary. Oklar hired me.”

“Oklar!” shrieks the girl, and Wash winces. “They give me my favorite candy. It’s the blue kind. Do you like the blue kind too?”

Wash has _no fucking idea_ how to deal with kids. Caboose? Yes. Children? No. Send help. Immediately.

“Oklar hired you?” Some of the suspicion is slowly starting to leave the other kid’s face.

“Yes,” Wash says. “I’m going to get you out of here, but we need to move.”

“There’s a raid tonight,” the kid suddenly blurts. “That’s why it’s so empty.”

Wash curses, then opens the private com channel.

“Maine, the bandits are raiding tonight.” Silence. “Maine?” Yeah, okay. He turns back to the kids. “Get up. We’re moving.”

“Are you a robot?” the girl asks, springing to her feet. “Only ‘cause you don’t have a face, like a robot.”

“I’m a person,” Wash replies, and hesitates before holstering his rifle and taking his helmet off. “See?”

“Oh. Are you like a robot soldier, then?”

“Yeah, sure,” Wash mutters. The girl grabs onto the older kid’s hand with some difficulty when he’s finally, stiffly on his feet, and Wash figures he should probably cut the ties on them.

“C’mon, Manu, we gotta go,” she says, tugging.

“Let me cut those cuffs off,” Wash says, and slowly, openly draws his knife.

“Me first!” yells the girl, but the older kid – Manu, Wash supposes – pushes her back defensively.

“I won’t hurt you,” Wash repeats. “Just hold out your hands.”

It’s a bit of an exercise to cut plastic cuffs off of a child who’s vibrating with energy, but Wash manages it and seemingly wins a point or two in Manu’s trust column, because he stops glaring daggers at full blast, and he doesn’t flinch when Wash cuts through his cuffs.

Maine still hasn’t checked in so Wash draws his pistol before leaving the tent and keeps his helmet off, com volume on full blast, trying to quash his mounting panic because total radio silence is––

“Wash!”

He whips around instantly, gun raised, and the sight greeting him is _so fucking unexpected_ that he nearly drops the fucking Magnum.

Maine’s got his helmet off, hair mussed, and he’s got one arm around a kid sitting on his hip like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The kid is holding Maine’s helmet and staring completely entranced at his reflection.

“Ruula!” the girl shrieks. Again with the shrieking. Wash is starting to have serious regrets about this entire fucking mission.

“ _Iqua_ ,” Manu hisses. “Keep quiet.”

“Okay,” she whispers loudly. “Hey mister, that’s Ruula. He’s my friend.”

“Hi,” Wash says awkwardly, and looks at Maine instead. “Anyone else?”

Maine shakes his head.

“Are you okay?” Manu asks Ruula, and Ruula nods.

“Ruula doesn’t talk,” says Iqua, bouncing around Manu in a circle, “but that’s okay, because he plays really good. Me ‘n him are gonna marry Yuli.”

Maine grins down at her. Ruula smiles toothily and waves at her, then looks back at Maine.

“This is Maine,” Wash explains, suddenly understanding that _look_ on Maine’s face, and shoving that to the very top of his “shit to definitely not think about ever again” list. “He’s my partner. He’s kind of like Ruula. He… His throat got hurt. It’s hard for him to talk.”

Iqua stares up at Wash, stretches up her hands, and bounces in the universal _please pick me up_ gesture. Wash fucking _panics_ and stares instinctively over at Maine. Maine, god bless every fucking inch of him, kneels down and gestures at Iqua, who immediately climbs him to perch across from Ruula. Manu looks like he’s going to have a heart attack.

“What’s your name?” Iqua asks Wash, now roughly at eye level, and she brushes her coarse, curly hair out of her face.

“Wash.”

“That’s a weird name.” She giggles. “My name’s Iqua. Like _ee-kwa_. You talk weird.”

“They’re not from Chorus,” Manu says quietly.

“Maine,” Wash interrupts, suddenly remembering _why_ he’d been looking for Maine, “apparently the rest of them are raiding. We need to leave before they–” There’s a loud, distant whoop and the sound of guns being fired. Wash sighs. Talk about dramatic fucking timing. “Before they come back.”

“Iqua, come here,” Manu says, and holds a hand out to her. Maine gently sets her down. “Ruula–” Ruula shakes his head stubbornly and clings to Maine’s armor with his tiny little fists.

Wash doesn’t remember being that small. He can’t conceptualize _Maine_ ever having been that damn small. Manu sighs, and gestures again to Ruula, who just shakes his head again. Wash takes a careful step forward.

“He’s going to need that,” Wash says to Ruula, and taps Maine’s helmet. Ruula’s eyes shine with the importance of the task he’s been assigned, then he grins wide, eyes nearly disappearing into his round cheeks, and he obligingly holds the helmet out for Maine. Maine smiles down at him before sliding his helmet back on one-handed. Wash follows suit, and Maine kneels down again to carefully, gently pry Ruula off of his armor. Manu immediately grabs Ruula’s hand.

“Manu, you need to listen to me very carefully.” Manu nods. “Can you drive?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Our car is just off the highway, but that’s a few klic– kilometers away. We’re going to get the three of you into that car, and you’re going to drive home. Do you understand?”

Manu nods again, face tight.

“Maine will take point–” Maine winks a green status light at him in confirmation. “–and I’ll follow. Stay between us, whatever you do. If it helps, watch Maine’s feet. If I tell you to run, then run. If I tell you to drop, you need to be on the ground instantly. Is that clear?”

“Yeah,” Manu says. “Yes.”

“Let’s move.”

 

 

An empty magazine and a thirty-plus bodycount later, their boots finally hit the roadway. It’s nearing dawn, now, and a good 65% of what’s keeping Wash going is the thought of that motel bed.

Nothing can ever be easy, naturally. Either there’s an alien-heavy black market on Chorus, or the Counselor kept a lot more shit than Wash had thought. Or both. Probably both. Complications were the last goddamn thing they needed. To top it off, Maine’s got a plasma burn on his leg that managed to eat through his bodysuit.

The Warthog is nowhere in sight, and Wash supposes that’s a good thing. It means that Manu got away from the raiders’ now-smoldering camp, at least, if not actually back to Triymal.

“How’s your leg?” Wash asks. They’ve got a good thirty-or-so klick walk to the city, so nothing egregious, but he’s tired and Maine’s wounded and they’re both running pretty low on patience.

Maine grunts back at him.

“I’m not going to carry you if you decide the pain’s too much,” Wash says snidely.

“You?” Maine snorts, “carry _me?_ Right.”

“I’m just clarifying, the offer’s not there.”

 

 

The roadway is quiet, and dawn breaks quickly. A small handful of cars passes them, mostly civilian ‘Hogs, and one huge food supply truck that roars and clatters its way down the cracked asphalt.

Maine’s limp is getting more and more pronounced. Wash has been trying to think of a way to call for a rest without making it seem obvious what he’s doing, but he’s drawing a complete blank.

“Maine, we need to stop,” he finally says, giving up. “You’re hardly putting any weight on that leg anymore.”

Maine huffs, and Wash can read that he’s offended in the tilt of his helmet.

“No, no arguing. Seriously, just a five-minute stop.”

Maine grunts at him, clearly irritated, and doesn’t slow down.

“I’m worried,” Wash snaps, following him doggedly, “because you’re injured, and there was something incredibly fishy about that camp, and there shouldn’t even _be_ plasma weapons on this planet. So stop, or I’ll knock you out.”

Maine finally turns around and slows, _finally_ , and snorts quietly.

“Knock me out? Like to see you try.”

“Don’t make me.”

“Mother hen,” Maine mutters under his breath, so quiet that Wash barely catches it.

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Maine rolls his eyes (not that Wash can actually see past his visor, he just _knows_ ) and sighs in defeat before coming to a full stop next to some sittable-on rocks. He’s a little too tender about taking a seat, so that’s how Wash knows that Maine seriously, honestly, really needed to fucking stop for a few minutes.

Wash paces for a few seconds and takes some time to roll his shoulders and loosen up his back. _He_ feels fine, which is great and all, but the fact that Maine is actually showing physical signs of distress at his injuries is really worrying him. And okay, fuck it, being with the Blues _might have_ made him a bit of a mother hen. Not that it’s a _bad_ thing.

They’ve got about fifteen klicks back to the city. They should make it back before noon, assuming that Wash doesn’t have to force Maine to stop. Again.

He sighs, and it gets drowned out by a ‘Hog zooming past them.

“Let’s go,” Maine grunts.

“No,” Wash says stubbornly.

“Going,” Maine growls, and slowly starts to stand up from the rock he’s been sitting on.

Wash is too busy trying to think of a way to make Maine _sit the fuck back down_ and doesn’t notice the car slowing down next to them until it’s far too late. He’s reaching for his pistol and Maine is in a weird sort of half-crouch and–

“You guys need a ride?”

Wash slowly lowers his pistol.

“Manu,” he says, surprised. “What– is everything okay?”

Manu nods and smiles tiredly. He looks decently okay – somewhat shaken, which is understandable – and mostly like he needs to sleep peacefully for a few days straight.

“Iqua and Ruula are both back with their families,” he says. “Oklar’s waiting for you. I volunteered to drive out here and see if I could find you guys along the roadway.”

“Well, you did,” Wash says. He’s impressed at Manu’s strength, honestly, and also really damn upset that this is something that’s apparently not a huge deal for him to go through. This _fucking_ planet. He glances at Maine. “Do you, uh, mind driving?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Wash pulls off his helmet and strips himself of his weapons, throwing them gracelessly in the back, and heads for where Maine is still on his goddamn rock and not showing signs of moving.

“Maine--”

Maine’s glaring at him, he can tell, and he does _not_ need to hear him say _don’t you dare fucking say I told you so_ for the sentiment to be crystal clear. Wash sighs. Again.

“You are _so stubborn_ ,” he hisses, and takes Maine’s hand to haul him upright. Holy _shit_. Yeah, he probably would never be able to actually carry Maine, all jokes aside. He pulls Maine’s arm around his shoulders and lets Maine use him as a crutch on their way to the car. Maine tosses his helmet and weapons in the car once he’s close enough and swings himself into the passenger seat with a grimace, deliberately avoiding his wounded leg. Yeah, Wash is very quietly slipping into panic mode.

 

 

A small group of people is waiting for them when Manu finally pulls up in front of the motel they’d been staying at, and Wash groans quietly.

“Do you need any–?” Manu twists around in his seat, fiddling with the ignition chip and looking between Wash and Maine.

Maine grunts at him. Wash rolls his eyes at Maine, and turns to Manu.

“We’ll be fine. What are all these people here for?”

Wash recognizes Oklar, who smiles at both of them and leans over to quickly say something to the person standing next to them. Manu doesn’t get a chance to answer; Oklar walks up to the car and starts talking.

“Oh, good, Manu found you,” they say as Wash gets out of the ‘Hog. “I just wanted to say–”

“Look, Oklar,” Wash interrupts, “I’m sorry, but we’ve got some shit to handle right now. Can we do this later?”

Concern spreads across their face; Wash gestures for Maine to just get out of the damn car already.

“Do you need anything?”

“Space, and quiet,” Wash says tiredly, and he watches Maine sign something to Oklar before slowly, gingerly lowering himself to the ground. “Sorry,” he adds, and hopes the apology doesn’t come across as the afterthought it was.

“No, it’s fine,” Oklar says, brows furrowed with concern. “Mila has a room for you for the night.”

Wash looks around and makes eye contact with the person who’d given them a room – what was it, two nights ago now? – and she smiles.

“I’m ready whenever you two are,” she says. Oklar and Manu are talking to the three other people who’d been part of their welcoming committee, and Manu looks like he’s gently trying to lead them away. Wash has bigger things to worry about. Maine puts a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Okay, let’s go,” Wash says. He can leave their shit in the car for now, he supposes, as long as he gets Maine out of his armor and figures out just what the _fuck_ is going on and how to fix it.

 

 

The room Mila gives them is slightly bigger than the one they had before, which really just gives them both more room for their armor. Wash rounds on Maine, prepared to have to drag answers out of his damn throat.

“What–”

“Think it hit my ACL,” Maine says, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. The wood creaks under the weight of him and his armor. “Biofoam. Can’t fucking feel anything. Fine, just numb.”

“Oh.”

Well, that’s a much simpler answer than Wash was expecting. Not that he’s complaining. Maine is looking at him strangely, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Mother hen,” Maine repeats, and there’s marked affection in his voice this time.

Wash scoffs in response and starts slowly shedding his armor. His back is on _fucking fire_ right now, which is exactly what he predicted and the opposite of what he wants. He starts trying to loosen it up halfway out of his armor, rolling his shoulders, arching his spine, anything to make bending down less of a nightmare.

He manages to finally shed all of his armor with less of a struggle than anticipated, and he’s about to nudge it into a vague sort of pile with his feet when he realizes that Maine has been watching him this whole time, still in his own armor, still with narrowed eyes.

“What?”

Maine makes a face at him, half-concerned and half-shrewd.

“I got– South shot me in the back. And I... shot her in the head.”

Maine accepts it with an offhanded shrug.

“I’m gonna shower,” Wash announces after the silence gets long enough to be awkward. Hopefully some hot water will be enough to loosen his back.

 

 

The previous night’s crowd starts filtering in less than a minute after Wash and Maine walk into Oklar’s store. Maine’s arm is still stretched out from accepting the credit chip from Oklar when someone clears their throat behind Wash’s back.

“Excuse me?”

Wash turns around. To his surprise, Manu is standing there, holding a bag and looking tired.

“I just wanted to thank you,” Manu says, a little nervously. “It’s not much, but it’s some food. I heard you guys are leaving, so–” He holds the bag out.

“Thank you,” Wash says, and his surprise makes the statement genuine. “Just, uh… take care of yourself.”

The tail end of his response is drowned out by a shriek and something small and dark barreling into his legs.

“Remember me?” Iqua shouts from around his kneecaps and Wash stares over at Maine, clamping down on his panic and hoping for some kind of advice on what to do here. Maine is smiling. Yeah, fuck you too.

“Hi, Iqua,” Wash says carefully, and pats her hair.

“Mama says I gotta say thank you,” she says, and finally lets go of his legs. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” Wash says awkwardly.

Maine kneels down, which still puts him above her eye level, and makes a gesture with his hands. She grins toothily and signs something back. Wash makes a mental note to learn USL at some point.

“Iqua,” someone calls, and she immediately sprints towards the person walking through the doorway. Maine stands back up, and Iqua’s parent – they look too alike to not be related – looks slightly intimidated. “I’m Marina, I’m Iqua’s mother.”

“Hello,” Wash says stiffly. This parade of people better end soon.

“I know you’re leaving soon,” she says, absently chasing after Iqua, who’s aiming straight for the candy, “and I don’t want to take up much of your time, but– _Iqua_ –” She finally hauls Iqua up onto her hip and brushes hair out of her face, exactly as dense and curly as her daughter’s. “Thank you.” She puts a hand on Maine’s bicep. “I don’t know what else to say. Thank you.”

Maine nods at her, and signs something short.

“That means ‘you’re welcome,’” Iqua immediately reports. Marina gently tweaks her nose.

“Is there anything I can do for you two? Anything at all?” Marina asks, and readjusts her hold on Iqua. Wash glances at Maine.

“I think we’re fine,” he says. “Thank you.”

She and Iqua both smile at him and Marina’s got tears in her eyes and this, Wash thinks, is probably the reason he stayed in the military all those years.

“Did good,” Maine says casually, quietly, after they’ve been on the road for an hour in silence.

 

 

“When did you learn USL?” Wash asks.

They’ve got a campfire going – honest to fucking god _campfire_ , it’s all very exciting – in an attempt to roast some of the sausage Manu had given them. Smart kid. He’d given them at least five pounds of travel-friendly food.

Maine gives him a one-shouldered shrug and examines the hunk of meat speared on the end of his knife.

“Rehab.”

“What?”

“Therapy,” Maine says impatiently, and gingerly bites at the sausage. “After-” He jerks a thumb at his throat. “Part of the rehab.”

“I didn’t know that.” Wash frowns. “That’s still raw, by the way.”

“I _know_ ,” Maine grunts, and rests his knife back where it was alongside Wash’s, propped up near the coals. “Wasn’t during visiting hours. Hated it.” He stretches out his injured leg. “Guess I learned more than I thought.”

“The UNSC hand signals come from USL, don’t they?” Wash asks, half-rhetorically.

Maine smiles at him and signs _me, team, close, vehicle, far, dark, safety, cover_ before diverging into strings of words Wash definitely knows are not part of the UNSC’s repertoire of standard hand signals.

“You sign sometimes, when people talk to you–?” Wash gestures vaguely at his own throat, and Maine chuckles quietly at him before repeating the sign that Wash can at least _recognize_ as being the one that he usually uses.

“Teach me,” Wash says. Maine looks at him with just about as much surprise as Wash is feeling. “It’s not a bad thing for me to learn. USL, I mean. Generally.”

Maine turns to face him full-on and holds up his hands at shoulder-height, relaxed, then slowly, exaggeratedly makes the same twist-flick motion that Wash is pretty sure he’s seen him do before.

“Wait,” Maine suddenly says, and frowns before starting again from what Wash is guessing to be neutral, and makes a different, slightly longer series of movements.

Move, twist, pat, two fingers--

“No,” Maine interrupts, letting out a short laugh, and gently pulls Wash’s hands down to his lap.

“What did I say?” Wash asks, feeling the corners of his mouth turn up. Maine’s laugh is still infectious as hell, damage notwithstanding.

“‘My cough nose,’” Maine tells him, grinning.

“Wow.”

“Again,” Maine prompts, and then signs his phrase even more slowly.

Wash repeats it back, somewhat clumsily, but Maine nods at him.

“Good.” Maine signs it again, and Wash signs back again.

“So, what am I saying?” Wash asks, looking down to watch the shapes his hands are making.

“‘My friend is mute,’” Maine says quietly. “Or, ‘my partner can’t speak.’ Depends.” He reaches out to gently still Wash’s hand, and then turns it the opposite way. “Like this.”

“Are we?” Wash asks, letting Maine guide his hand through the sign. “Friends.”

“Are we?” Maine echoes, voice low. The firelight is making the scars on his throat even more pronounced. Wash lowers his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

Maine takes his hand off of Wash’s, but it’s gentle, and there’s no trace of bitterness or rebuke in the action.

“Me either.”

Maine’s datapad pings quietly and he turns away to check it. Wash checks on the food – almost done, probably – and looks back at Maine in time to see him frown and toss the datapad back on top of his bags.

“What?”

“Same Lethbridge ID keeps pinging,” Maine grunts. “Need to re-run decryption. Corrupted, maybe.”

“Weird.”

Maine stretches and cracks his back.

“Could try data again from different base,” he says.

“This is really bugging you, isn’t it,” Wash says. Maine’s frown deepens and he looks away.

“Shouldn’t be anything wrong with decryption,” he mutters. “Too weird.”

Wash lets his silence stand as agreement. _Lethbridge Industrial_. Wash knows the name, he _knows_ he knows it, but there’s something that isn’t quite clicking.

“Can’t you decrypt the actual transmissions?”

“Weren’t there,” Maine says impatiently. “Just logs showing they were sent and received. Old comm station, old system, loads of redundancies. Can’t ever wipe anything completely. Comms sent before long-range went offline, maybe.”

“So if we can track this frequency, we might be able to find actual records of the transmissions themselves. Or a lead to the Counselor.”

Well, getting more intel just got a lot more important. He’s an idiot for not having realized this earlier.

Wash reaches for his own datapad and pulls up a map, then flicks through overlays until he’s got a line plotted that snakes from the merc base to where they are now, and several dots on the continent are glowing softly, pinpointing the locations of Fed bases, New Republic bases, and the small handful of merc bases.

“We’re a few hundred klicks out from this Fed base here,” Wash says. “And there’s a merc base by the coast that isn’t too far from that.”

“Cina?” Maine looks over at him, halfway through pulling their food out of the fire. “North Cina Base?”

“Looks like it.”

Maine smiles, and it’s a little bit mirthless and a whole lot wry.

“What?”

Maine sits back down next to him, pulls the datapad out of his hands, and gives him food instead. A part of Wash is starting to wonder just when Maine started being so comfortable moving in and out of Wash’s personal space, and just when Wash started letting him.

“Base, fifty klicks north of Cina, city,” Maine says, gesturing between the two. “Biggest merc base on Rushhaal. Cina, only port city this side of Seyyal Sea.”

“Wait.” Wash swallows what’s in his mouth. “The _only_ port city?”

Maine’s wry smile comes back.

“People in control of Cina have power over almost everything on and off continent.”

“Which side–?”

Maine’s smile gets even wider, even more mirthless.

“Cina’s civilian. Don’t let anyone in the city who’s military or merc.” Maine leans back against the ‘Hog’s tire and stretches his legs out in front of him. “Can try to cross Seyyal by boat, risk getting shelled by Feds or NRC. Flying, sometimes. Merc base has a few dropships. Crossing sea – not easy.”

Wash lets out a long sigh.

“With our luck, that’s probably where we’ll have to go.”

“Fed base near?”

“Yeah, about a hundred klicks away to the west. We can see if there’s any leads on the transmissions there.”

Maine smiles at him, and there’s finally contentment in his face.

 

 

“This is a big base. This is a _huge_ base.” Wash lowers the DMR and looks over at Maine, who’s got a thoughtful set to his shoulders. “It’ll take a full day of recon, if not two or three.”

Maine shrugs.

“Could just wing it.”

“No,” Wash snaps.

“Would probably end up fine,” Maine adds.

“ _No_ ,” Wash repeats, temper flaring. “You’re not invincible, Maine.”

“Paranoid.”

“I swear to _god––_ ”

An alarm blares from the base and they both instinctively whip around towards it, guns raised, and Wash is quietly glad for the interruption to their argument once it’s clear that the alarm wasn’t a response to the two of them.

Wash exhales, and forces the stress out of his system with it.

“Recon,” Maine says, and claps a hand on Wash’s shoulder.

 

 

“Are you sure about this?” Wash says, voice low even though there’s no reason anyone outside his helmet can hear him.

Infiltration doesn’t come naturally to Wash. It takes a hundred percent of his energy and effort to concentrate on stealth and on making the least amount of noise possible and on making himself as small as possible.

“It might draw too much attention.”

“Be fine,” Maine says after a pause. “If not, we’ll handle it.”

Wash takes a deep breath. He does _not_ like infiltration.

“Alright,” he says, “we’ve got our locations marked on our HUDs and we’ve got a solid hour to get in and out.”

“ _Relax_.” Maine puts a hand on his shoulder. “Everything lines up, everything planned out.”

“Right. Sync?”

“Sync.”

 

The graveyard shift means there’s only one guard each around the four main entrances to the compound, and Wash isn’t _really_ worried about the difficulty of knocking out two guards, but he can’t _not_ be worried. Anything could happen.

His first guard is standing tall and alert, and staring out in precisely the opposite direction from which Wash is approaching.

It takes him fifteen minutes to jog to the next gate and he hasn’t heard an alarm yet; Maine’s IFF tag is on the move, too, so this should be over soon.

The next guard is yawning and distracted – sloppy – and goes down even quicker than the first.

“On the move,” Wash says once he’s done, and starts carefully heading back down into the brush. Maine winks a green status light back almost immediately.

“Any problems?” Wash asks, five minutes later, once they’ve both reached the rendezvous.

Maine shakes his head.

“Me either,” Wash says. “I’m surprised no one’s noticed yet.”

Maine shrugs offhandedly, focused instead on the base.

“Shift changes in three minutes,” he replies. “Should get interesting then.”

Wash makes a noise of agreement, then takes the DMR off of his back and raises it to his shoulder.

“Don’t shoot,” Maine snaps, carefully but firmly pushing the barrel down.

“I’m not an idiot,” Wash snaps back. “I was going to use the scope. You know, to _see what’s happening_.”

Maine huffs at him, and releases the barrel. Wash brings the rifle back up to his shoulder, then looks through the scope.

“Nothing is happening at this post.” He checks the west entrance, one of the two Maine had taken care of, and it’s similarly devoid of activity. Wash lowers the rifle. “Sloppy.”

“Not bad.” Maine pauses. “For us.”

He reaches over Wash’s shoulder to gently pull the rifle out of his hands, and Wash lets him. Maine with the DMR would be a nearly comical sight, except all Wash can think of is Maine taking out that captain.

“New guard coming,” Maine says sharply, and gives the rifle back to Wash. “Ready?”

Wash slings the DMR back across his shoulders and cracks his back.

“Ready.”

 

 

Maine is a genius. Like, bona-fide genius.

Everyone in Project Freelancer had above-average intelligence on at least three of the five scales, but Maine is really something else. It’s been a long, long time since last Wash saw him in his element like this. Maine’s a one-man army, and he’s a tactical genius in that respect.

Maine was able to make breaking into the facility a walk in the goddamn park. Wait for a guard to move, slip behind them, look out for the incoming patrol, kick a rock, make a distraction. Maine knows how to read people and he knows how to _play_ people, and watching Maine carefully turn the facility to pandemonium with a few mysteriously unconscious guards was something goddamn else. Wash’s blood is pounding with the adrenaline rush from their near misses but he feels _alive_ and there’s a vicious pride thumping in his chest as they jog back to the car, armed with a datapad full of potentially less corrupted data.

“You’re damn good at that,” Wash says, breaking their ten-minute silence. “The whole… stealth thing.”

Maine makes a noncommittal noise.

“Have to be. Don’t really like it.”

“Yeah.”

They’ve got a half a klick left to the car so Wash slows to a walk to give his body some time to wind down, and Maine matches his pace.

“We can make it to North Cina base in three days,” Wash says, “and that’s including a leisurely overnight stop somewhere.”

“Not in a hurry right now,” Maine says, shrugging. “Not like these guys will ever find us.”

Wash can’t help but smile at that.

 

 

A day and a half’s drive brings two things: frustration, and a place to sleep.

Maine slings his duffel down on the shitty, thin motel carpet and it thuds ominously as he ignores Wash’s reproachful glare and stalks straight to the shower.

Wash sighs and _gently_ sets his own duffel down, runs his hand through his hair, and pulls out Maine’s datapad. The decryption – the fourth round – is done, and they’re both just as pleased with the results as they were the first three times around. Either this jackhole frequency has some kind of ridiculous encryption system (which it doesn’t, because it’s labeled as having average-advanced encryption), or Sam’s decryption program is massively corrupted (which it isn’t, because Maine says so).

By the time he gets out of the shower, Maine’s frustration has calmed to a dull stiffness in his posture, and he lightly rests his palm on Wash’s shoulder as he crosses the room to his bag. Wash takes the apology as-is.

“There’s at least a full Federal Army regiment here,” Wash says. “It looks like they’re just moving through.”

“Might be a good source for info,” Maine says, and the direction of his digging through the bag changes. “Go out, ask around.”

“What, us?”

Maine looks at him with _who else_ on his face. Wash frowns, thinking. He supposes the potential benefits (which include information and maybe even some real food) outweigh the drawbacks (which include an expenditure of effort). He finally shrugs.

“Might as well.”

 

 

So that’s how Wash ends up at the tiny, crowded bar, along with Maine and the majority of that Fed regiment.

Maine knocks back his second vodka with a smug look on his face, and Wash kills his second whiskey in return with pointed moodiness. The food had been good, for bar food (though Wash’s standards for what qualifies as “good food” are practically nonexistent after so many years of MREs and protein bars), and there’s a content set to Maine’s shoulders as he finishes the last of his chips and gestures for a beer so Wash figures this isn’t a total loss so far. Now they just need to do some… data mining.

“Mind if I join you?”

Wash looks over, surprised, to see someone standing at the bar next to them, holding a beer, clean-cut with military precision. Maine looks at Wash and gives him a neutral shrug.

“Sure,” Wash says, and gets a grin in return.

“My name’s Jeffries,” says their guest, and pulls a barstool up on Maine’s other side. “I hate to barge in like this, but you’re definitely not in any of our squads, and you don’t look like locals, either.” She’s got an easy smile and Wash isn’t catching any red flags yet, so he engages carefully.

“Well, you’re not wrong there.” It takes Wash a couple of seconds to remember his manners. “I’m Wash, this is Maine.” Maine nods by way of greeting.

“You guys mercs?” Jeffries takes a long pull of her beer, then shakes the now-empty bottle sadly. Wash glances at Maine, in case there’s something Wash isn’t reading in Jeffries’ posture, and Maine briefly meets his eyes before nodding again in response. “Cool. My company’s full of you guys.”

“And no issues?”

Jeffries laughs, and it’s warm and open.

“Nah, company’s got good people who know when we need a hand. I understand your worry there, though, I do.”

Maine huffs and rolls his eyes, and Jeffries grins at him.

“So what’s your guys’s story?” she asks, motioning for a refill. “I don’t mean to pry or anything, I just haven’t run into a lot of mercs outside of my folks.” She gestures between the two of them.

Wash glances at Maine, who shrugs noncommittally at him and takes a drink of his beer.

“We… sort of ended up on this job together,” Wash says. “Not much to it, really.” The lie of the century.

“A brawler and a crack shot, I’m guessing?”

Maine gives Jeffries one of his more smug grins.

“Good guess,” Wash supplies, and Jeffries grins happily back at them both.

It’s almost a relief to just shoot the shit with a stranger, to do something overwhelmingly _normal_. Jeffries is funny and pleasant and chatty and refreshingly kind, and Wash learns about her military career, her wife, her squad. When Jeffries, in turn, asks Maine about the scars on his throat, Wash looks over hesitantly. Maine nudges his arm, and nods.

“Long story short, he took about a magazine’s worth of bullets to the throat.”

“To the _throat?_ ”

Maine cheerfully taps the scars in question, then raises his drink.

“Didn’t you get run over afterwards, too?” Wash muses.

Maine agrees with nonchalance.

“There’s a couple of guys in my company who went AWOL during the Great War, but–” Jeffries laughs incredulously. “–no stories like that. _Damn_.”

“So you really don’t run into other mercs often?” Wash asks. Maine watches Jeffries closely, circling the rim of his glass with a finger. Wash almost reaches out to swat his hand away.

“Nah, not really. We’ve got a bunch contracted to serve, but aside from that?” Jeffries shrugs. “Haven’t seen much. Like I said, though, tons of merc squads in the Federal Army.”

“No kidding.”

“ _I_ don’t understand the anti-merc folks,” Jeffries continues, frowning. “I mean, okay, Chorus is _our_ planet, but you mercs only help us, you know? You’re not–– the _cause_ of this, or anything.”

Maine makes a vague gesture that shows neither agreement nor disagreement, and Jeffries goes on.

“I mean– those Reds and Blues are even on this planet. I’ve definitely got no resentment _there_.” Jeffries cracks a smile.

“Oh, yeah,” Wash says offhandedly, ignoring the ice in his gut, and Maine shifts infinitesimally next to him. “That’s right. Aren’t they being held hostage?”

Jeffries laughs outright.

“C’mon, I thought you mercs were supposed to be in the know!” Maine shrugs. “No way. We trained with them before they split off. Well, I say ‘we’–” Jeffries waves her bottle. “The squads keep rotating. I’ve got a friend whose squad trained with Sarge.”

“Split off?” Wash asks, and hopes there’s nothing in his voice or posture that could give him away.

“You didn’t hear about that, either?”

Wash shrugs, and glances at Maine.

“Sarge and the others went AWOL and met up with the group the New Republic had captive,” Jeffries explains, “sprang ‘em all, and now they’ve met up with some _other_ merc group. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Well, that’s certainly interesting,” Wash says. _Interesting_ doesn’t begin to cover it. Obviously, the Federal Army had been mirroring the New Republic’s whispers that the Federal Army was a bunch of bad guys bent on keeping captives. “So they’ve just dropped off the radar?”

“They’ve run a few ops on their own, so not exactly. And–” Jeffries leans in conspiratorially. “–I’ll tell you this, too. We’ve been tracking some of their movements, and I caught a glimpse of ‘em a few weeks ago.”

“Of the Reds and the Blues?”

“Yeah,” she replies, grinning, “I’m pretty sure I saw Grif and Simmons. You know, the maroon guy and the yellow guy.”

“He’s orange,” Wash says automatically, and immediately gives himself a mental kick in the ass. _Jesus_.

Jeffries shrugs.

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, and takes another swig of her beer. “But goddamn, this is shaping up to be interesting, isn’t it? It’ll be a whole new war soon, mark my words.”

“Might spell trouble,” Wash says.

“Me, I’m excited,” Jeffries says, grinning. “I can’t wait for a chance to go up against them. It’ll be something to brag about.”

“That it will be,” Wash mutters, and lifts his glass only to realize it’s empty.

“You need some air,” Maine says to him quietly.

“Sure,” Wash replies, as if Maine had suggested something, ignoring everything except keeping his voice even. He looks over at Jeffries. “We’re gonna go have a smoke.”

“I should go check on the kids,” Jeffries says, nodding towards a group of soldiers that’s been steadily getting rowdier. “Great talking to you guys. You ever contract to the Feds, let me know.”

“Will do,” Wash says, and Jeffries shakes his and Maine’s hands in turn. Maine lightly touches Wash’s shoulder as Jeffries heads away from the bar.

“Air,” he repeats.

“Fine, christ.”

It’s refreshingly crisp outside and Wash takes the opportunity to take a long, slow breath. The Reds and the Blues – or, well, most of the Reds, at least – are alive. Alive and possibly hunted, but not being held captive, at least. That’s more than he could have asked for.

“Wondered, sometimes, how you passed evals.”

“What?”

Maine nods towards him.

“Psych evals, Recovery force.”

“Oh.”

“Had to work hard to see past you now. Good liar.”

“You know what they say,” Wash says, turning away, bitterness creeping into his voice, “necessity is the mother of invention.”

Maine barks out a harsh laugh.

They stand in the quiet for a few minutes, listening to the muffled, cheerful din of the bar, cars trundling down the roadway, and Maine finally puts a hand on Wash’s shoulder.

“One more drink?”

 

 

One more drink turns into two and three and four and Wash really, _really_ hasn’t done this in a long time. He’s surprised he’s not three sheets to the damn wind right now. Maine’s face has been flushed since drink number two, but he seems fine otherwise, a little softer at the edges maybe; Wash can feel his own guard coming down for the first time in what feels like months as Maine grins at him and claps a hand on his shoulder and–

The bright sound of shattering glass is so unexpected that Wash actually jumps.

"Filthy fucking _mercs!_ " shouts an incredibly drunk, incredibly angry voice from somewhere behind them. Maine throws Wash a concerned look and turns around, hand sliding down from Wash’s shoulder. "Get the fuck out of here. You got no goddamn right–"

"Sir," one of the bartenders says loudly, "you either need to calm down or leave."

"Don't tell me to calm down," he yells, pointing at her with a broken bottle, and in a split second it’s immediately obvious who’s trained and who’s a civilian. There’s a wave of people – about half the bar – who scramble backwards up against the walls or who run outside, and the rest of the patrons move either to protect the bartender or to cluster around the guy with the bottle. Wash slides off the stool and right into Maine’s personal space and there’s still a little too much alcohol in his system that hasn’t been chased out by adrenaline yet, so he has to steady himself with a hand on Maine’s arm.

“Gonna be ugly,” Maine mutters to him, and cracks his neck.

“You’re just as bad as the rest–” The man is still going on his tirade, red-faced, spit flying, hand still waving the broken bottle at the bartender. She’s staring at him, stony-faced. “Rest of _that scum_ , letting them on our planet.”

“Sir, you need to leave.”

"Why shouldn't _they_ leave?" shouts a new voice, just as slurred, and noises of assent spread through the room.

“Do you think any of us want to be here fighting this war?” snaps someone who’s standing defensively in front of the bartender. “We have planets of our own to defend but instead we're here. _Stuck_. Just like you are.”

"You're creating a racket and threatening my customers,” the bartender adds stubbornly. “I'm only going to say this one more time: _leave."_

It's dead silent. The drunk man stares at her and breathes heavily, face still flushed, but finally turns away.

"Fuckass," mutters someone from by the bar.

The drunk man turns and hurls his broken bottle, and that's when everything goes to shit.

Wash disarms as many armed locals as he possibly can because there are still fucking _civilians_ in here, too scared to move, and then starts knocking out anyone dumb enough to get near him.

Maine is taking on two assholes who are either too drunk or too stupid to realize that they're trying to fight the largest person in the room, making blind stabs at him with hunting knives and endangering others more than Maine. Wash is about to move in to disarm one of them but then someone stumbles right in front of Wash holding a fucking fully automatic rifle, so Wash nails him in the face, ejects the magazine, clears the chamber, and tosses the gun back behind the bartender’s counter.

The fight’s over just as quickly as it started. There aren’t any civilians on the ground, but there’s a merc who looks about to bleed out, and at _least_ four dead people. Well, four piled around Maine who Wash assumes are dead, judging by the limp angles of their spines. Wash doesn’t see Jeffries on the floor anywhere.

"Should spar," Maine says, and wipes at his nose.

" _What?_ Right now?"

"No, dumbass," Maine snorts. "Generally. More often."

"Oh."

Wash thumbs some blood off of a shallow cut on his forearm, and makes a mental note to wipe some antiseptic over it just in case. Maine is much worse off than he is, and it’s looks like he’s picking––

“Is that _glass_ in your arm?”

Maine shrugs and carefully pinches out an inch-long shard. Wash drags a hand down his face.

“Just–” He sighs into his hand. “Just– come into the kitchen. Better light.”

Maine makes a face but follows him through the bar anyways, doing his best not to step on mercs, and doing his best to step extra hard on any fingers belonging to the asshole who broke the bartender’s arm.

The kitchen is occupied when they get there, so obviously Wash wasn’t alone in the (good) idea to look for a place with more light. The bartender is there, along with someone who looks like a civilian medic, and a couple mercs talking quietly through their comms.

Wash stops Maine with a hand around his biceps, right under a bright fluorescent light, and then he lifts Maine’s forearm up to eye level.

“That’s not too bad, actually,” he says. Maine shrugs again.

It doesn’t take too long to fish out all of the glass out of Maine’s arm, which is perfect because Wash is suddenly very, very ready to go to sleep. The adrenaline rush is starting to turn into a crash as he slowly pushes out another tiny little shard, and he stifles a yawn with his less-bloody hand.

“Wounded?” Maine asks him quietly, and Wash shakes his head.

“Just a scrape, that’s it.”

He ignores a quiet commotion in the corner and focuses on picking out a small cluster of glass, soaking in the warmth of being this close to another human being. Caboose used to fall asleep slumped against his shoulder, and Wash’ll shoot himself in the foot before admitting it out loud, but he misses it. He does _not_ miss Tucker making fun of him for it, and _god_ , it was pretty awkward, but he misses all kinds of quiet human contact. _Especially_ the fact that Caboose only really ever shut up when he was asleep.

So he doesn’t even really register it when Maine steps close enough to lean into him and lets Wash fish the last piece of glass out of his arm.

“You need antiseptic,” Wash says, as matter-of-factly as possible once he realizes that Maine is ten centimeters away from his face. Maine just sighs quietly.

 

 

Wash jerks awake and opens his eyes immediately, refuses to let his eyelids shut so that he doesn’t have to see what’s burned into their backs. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and three breaths later it’s obvious that this is not gonna cut it for him right now.

He gets up and walks to the bathroom as silently as he can so as to not wake up Maine, who’s still a dark lump on the floor. The tile is cold under his feet. Normally he’d turn on the shower, focus on something else, but instead he leans over the sink and lets his knuckles tighten on the cheap, yellowed sides. The skin under his eyes is dark and bruised like it’s been for years, now, and it’s only accentuated by the low light; there’s even more grey in his hair and he _hates_ these reminders of everything he’s been dragged through. As much as he tries to wear them proudly, he hates every inch of the dark circles, hates every grey hair at his temple. Hates that he hates them. Hates that he still hasn’t _fixed himself_. Knows there’s no deadline for recovery.

The bathroom smells like cheap fake lavender and Wash takes another deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and focuses on everything physical and concrete around him. Like the quiet rustle coming from the other room.

It’s so dark that Wash can barely see Maine, only vague shapes given form by dim indicator lights over the switches and outlets in the bathroom, and he doesn’t know how to react. Maine looks at him -- at least, Wash is assuming that Maine’s looking at him -- and then very carefully, telegraphing the movement, puts a hand on Wash’s shoulder.

There’s no weight lifted off of his chest, there’s no magical feeling of permanent happiness, there’s no easing of the sleep-sick nausea in his gut, but it’s as if a very small, very persistent candle has been lit. Wash catalogues the firm pressure of Maine’s hand on his shoulder and adds it to a carefully maintained box in his head, then takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

Maine gently squeezes his shoulder and lets his hand fall as he walks back out of the bathroom, fingers pulling at Wash’s arm with the barest suggestion. Wash takes one last deep breath and follows Maine because they might as well get sleep while they can.

He can see Maine’s silhouette unceremoniously rearranging his bedroll with a foot and Wash gets as far as reaching for the snarled blankets on the bed when he pauses, frowns down at the mattress, looks over at Maine, and opens his mouth. Maine meets his eyes and smiles with the tiniest corner of his mouth; Wash closes his mouth, shrugs, and gestures at the quite-obviously-big-enough-to-fit-two-people bed.

Maine’s breaths are deliberately even so Wash matches his own with them and focuses on the way gravity is pulling his limbs down, the way the mattress dips back towards Maine, and it’s kind of telling that this is probably one of the most honest conversations he’s had in a long time.

 

 

Wash volunteers to go get breakfast the next morning, and if it has anything to do how queasy (read: hungover) he’s feeling and how much he’d like to take a walk, that’s none of Maine’s goddamn business.

The Fed regiments are already on the move, and Wash is hit with a pang of familiarity at the sight of trucks piled high with armor and supply crates. He’s still slightly dazed about Jeffries’ information, and while there’s a part of him that’s skeptical, there’s no reason for Jeffries to have lied. God, he wishes there was some way to lump all of this together but–– no. There’s no way he’s dragging the Reds and the Blues back into his personal bullshit. Again.

Breakfast is cheap and smells good, and the trucks are just starting to rumble down the roadway as Wash reaches the motel.

“Anything new?” Wash asks, and Maine holds out a hand distractedly for his food.

“Same shit,” he replies. “Looks like decryption goes fine until location and ID.”

“Isn’t that… the entire decryption process? Location and ID?”

Maine glares up at him, and Wash shrugs. This was never his Thing.

“Encryption package cracks, mSSID, then–” Maine throws the datapad down on the bed. “Stuck in loop, not redirecting anymore. Some bug. Location, locus, location, locus.”

“If you c––”

Time literally fucking stops.

Holy shit.

“Wash?”

He’s barely aware of Maine standing, carefully raising his hands.

“Locus,” Wash repeats, and turns to stare at him. “ _Locus_ , right? It’s telling you ‘location locus?’”

Maine nods slowly, and reaches for the datapad.

“Maine, Locus is the name of a mercenary.”

Maine barks out a skeptical noise.

“ _No,_ listen to me.” Wash can feel his temper flaring. Well, _that_ hasn’t happened for a while. “Locus is a merc. He’s the one who attacked us in the canyon. He’s working for the Federal Army. He and his squad are the ones who took me out.”

“High-level merc? And _I_ don’t know him?”

“Obviously you don’t know everything,” Wash snaps. “If Locus is behind the attack on the canyon, and he’s responsible for separating us, _and_ he’s the ID who’s been talking to the Counselor–”

“Didn’t think it was necessary?” Maine interrupts, voice deadly quiet.

“What?”

“Telling me who attacked.”

“You were _in the goddamn canyon!_ What, was I supposed to _also_ report to you that I got knocked out and that my teams got separated?”

Maine snarls at him wordlessly.

“Okay,” Wash says, _trying_ to keep his voice under control, “Fine. Locus is a merc working for the Federal Army. Apparently he ditched his real name and doesn’t even go by a callsign, just by the––”

Jesus christ.

“Wash?” Maine asks carefully, again.

“I’m an idiot,” Wash says simply. “Lethbridge Industrial. Lethbridge makes the LOCUS variants for MJOLNIR.”

Maine stares at him, silent.

“That’s why it was redirecting you,” Wash finishes, bitterly. “I should have seen this.”

Maine runs a hand through his hair.

“Not your fault,” he says, and the words are forced. “Bad luck.”

Wash makes a noncommittal noise in response.

“Frequency used recently,” Maine continues, and his fingers are tapping away at his datapad. “80 klicks east, 7 hours ago.” He looks over at Wash and raises his eyebrows. Wash shrugs.

“At this point, it’s worth a shot.”

 

 

“What do you mean _, on the move?_ ” Wash asks, just barely easing his boot off the pedal.

“Pinging another 20 klicks east, steady,” Maine replies. “Trap, maybe. Maybe detected.”

“We can handle a trap,” Wash says, and hopes his voice sounds as confident as he intends it to be. He feels just as good about squaring off against Locus with Maine as he did with the Reds and the Blues. Which is to say, not good. At all. Not that he doesn’t trust Maine’s abilities, but there’s _something_ about Locus that makes Wash uneasy.

Maine just looks at him.

The landscape starts to flatten the closer they get to the coast, and the rough heather-like plants give way to softer grasses, as gray and cool as the clouds hanging low. Wash would probably appreciate it a lot more if all this flatness didn’t mean they might as well be covered in neon lights and announcing their presence.

The closer they get to the last location, the more Wash is certain that this is a trap. They leave the ‘Hog near a picturesque little knoll and triple-check for trip mines before fanning out, watching their feet, tense as hell and waiting for the inevitable ambush.

“What’s going on here?” Wash asks quietly over their comm channel. Maine makes an indistinct noise in response. “This doesn’t really make sense.”

Maine is starting to move impatiently now, practically marching forward, and Wash sees the trip mines on the ice shelf like a movie spooling through over and over in his head.

“Maine,” he finally hisses, “ _trip mines_. Be careful.”

Maine’s snort in response crackles over their comm channel, and before Wash can stop him, Maine palms a grenade off his hip, pulls the pin, and tosses it across the field.

Wash has a split second of panic – _where do I go what if I’m right above another trip mine what if what if_ – but it’s overridden almost instantly by muscle memory driving him straight into the dirt.

The ground _roars_. His helmet compensates immediately for the noise but Wash can still feel each explosion thundering through his chest as the grenade sets off one trip mine sets off the next trip mine sets off the next, and he is going to _murder_ Maine if the mines don’t get them first.

Wash raises his head once the last explosion has stopped echoing in his ribs and there’s dirt and grass sprayed everywhere, a good square 200 meters completely blown apart where Maine had thrown the grenade. Maine is on his feet, arms crossed, helmet tilted defiantly towards Wash.

“Are you–?” Wash starts, but he’s cut off by Maine drawing his pistol and flashing his status light amber. Wash whips around and draws his rifle, and... nothing.

Maine keeps winking his light amber at him but there is _nothing there_ , the ground is flat as a board and Wash sees no goddamn movement. He’s about to turn around to ask Maine what the fuck is going on with him when he sees grass flatten out of the corner of his eye, against the light breeze.

Well, shit. Active camo. Wash immediately fires two shots right above the flattened patch and he hits _something_ , that’s for sure, because he saw that warping flicker, so he adjusts his aim and fires two more shots. The cloak finally sparks and dies, followed immediately by a soldier dressed like the ones who’d ambushed the canyon.

Awesome.

“Maine–” Wash calls warningly but he can see Maine turning already, scanning the area because there is no goddamn way they’d only come from one direction, and sure enough, someone de-cloaks twenty meters away from Wash, rifle raised.

There’s something definitely not right about this. He instinctively catalogues everything and squares it away to think about later because he has _never_ seen weapons like this before and he had clearance from _ONI_ at one point, for fuck’s sake.

Wash sinks two shots into the de-cloaked soldier’s chest and one into their head, fucking _textbook_ , then sprints towards the body. If his suspicion is right–

And then he’s barreled sideways so goddamn hard he wonders for a few milliseconds whether he’d managed to not see a car, _christ_ , his ribcage, but instinct takes over again and he finds something invisible and solid, wrestles his pistol off his thigh, and fires three shots again. Another spark, another fizzle, and he heaves the body off of his chest.

He can’t breathe without razor-sharp pain in his side but there it is, just like he’d thought: a radar jammer. Thank god it’d been on _this_ asshole. Wash smashes it with the butt of his rifle and his HUD refreshes immediately with just one red dot, fifty meters from Maine.

“Maine, _wait_ –” Wash is back on his feet but Maine’s already hurtling towards the soldier’s position as they de-cloak–– -

“ _Maine!_ ”

God, it practically happens in slow motion. Wash sees the oblong unit in the soldier’s hand and it’s too late, even after Maine’s pulled the trigger. The soldier goes down like a rock, and the power-drain unit turns on.

It’s almost blinding. The unit’s been overloaded, and whether that’s intentional or not doesn’t matter right now, but Wash’s shields get drained instantly, HUD fizzling into static at the edges, even though he’s still forty-odd meters away.

He can’t do anything but watch as Maine falls to his knees, arcs of electricity sparking across his armor, and then Maine _crumples_. The only thing stopping Wash from launching himself forward is the fact that the blue-tinged bubble is still humming ominously, sparking, pulsing out uneven flares of energy, shields still low, HUD beeping shrilly.

The second the power drain unit finally gives its last flicker and shuts down, Wash limps towards Maine as fast as he can.

“Maine,” he gasps out, grits his teeth as his side fucking _burns_ when he kneels down, fingers scrabbling over Maine’s armor to find the manual pressure release, coldness seeping into his gut as the armor vents atmosphere. He practically rips off Maine’s helmet once it’s done and Maine’s head rolls limply to the side, damp hair slicked across his forehead, blood starting to drip from his nostrils; Wash pulls his gauntlet off and shoves his fingers against Maine’s neck, _praying_ for a fucking pulse, nearly fainting with relief when he finds it. Wash doesn’t need to see another person killed by armor shutdown.

_Fuck_.

He exhales explosively. The car is a solid klick away so he shoves the pain even further away to be dealt with even later, grabs Maine’s helmet, and slings his dead weight across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.

He’s shaking by the time he reaches the car and Maine is still unconscious, goddammit, _goddammit,_ so Wash sets Maine down as gently as possible and starts stripping him of the armor, checking every few minutes to make sure that fucking pulse is still there.

They’re thirty klicks away from the merc base north of Cina. Wash makes it there in five minutes.

 

 

Maine is still out cold in the passenger seat and Wash is willing to go to any fucking medic at this point, whatever the hell they’ve got at this base, _anything_ to get this sorted out. He’s starting to draw stares but he adamantly ignores them as he double-parks as close as possible to the enormous, outdated launch bay that houses North Cina Base, brakes squealing, and debates for exactly one full second before getting out of the car.

There’s no way to do this that isn’t going to make him the butt of at least fifty more jokes for the rest of his fucking life. He groans, then loops one of Maine’s limp arms around his shoulder, levers one arm behind his back, hooks his other arm under Maine’s knees, and lifts.

_Christ_ , Maine is dense as _fuck_. Wash is also pretty sure that what he’s feeling is cracked ribs, not just nasty bruises. What a fucking day.

By the time he makes it the 200 meters to the inside of the base, the din has hushed to a murmur and there are _way_ too many people staring at him.

“Medics,” Wash croaks, and his knees hit the ground.

 

 

Wash jerks awake at the pressure of a hand on his thigh.

“Maine,” he blurts out, leaning forward, wrenching a creak out of the rickety hospital chair he’s in. Maine looks like he’s still half-unconscious, the hand on Wash’s thigh heavy and limp, other hand on his chest, IV snaking down to it. _Damn_. Needles. “You’re– I need to you to look at me.”

“Why?” Maine’s voice is bleary, tired, but with the slight clarity that comes after disuse. His half-open eyes don’t leave Wash’s for a second as Wash stands up and moves to the other side of the bed.

“Just trust me. I’m going to pick up your left hand.” Maine obliges, drowsy and blissfully unaware for a few heartbeats, and then he tenses. “Maine.” His jaw tenses. Wash realizes that it _might_ be kind of a mistake to try and take out an IV without actually knowing what he’s doing, but the alternative is decidedly not preferable. “It’s fine.” He’s found the needle. Maine’s breaths are a little too careful, his body a little too relaxed, and he’s staunchly refusing to break eye contact. “Just look at me. Okay–” He slides the needle out as quickly and as smoothly as he can. “Alright.” Maine exhales and closes his eyes.

“Thanks,” Maine mutters, and he halfheartedly squeezes Wash’s hand.

“Took it like a champ,” Wash says. “I’m sure they can give you a sticker and a lollipop now.”

Maine chuckles and lets it trail off into a quiet groan, scrubs his free hand down his face.

“In Cina?”

“Yeah, at that base we were heading towards.”

The curtain flaps as a harried-looking medic steps in, adjusts her ponytail, and pulls out her datapad.

“So you were the, uh–” She sticks a stylus between her teeth and scrolls through the datapad with one hand, checks a monitor with the other. “–right, right, the armor lock nightmare. Quick thinking, by the way,” she says, turning to Wash and pointing with the stylus. “Depressurizing the armor as quickly as you did probably saved his life.”

Wash nods along and carefully avoids Maine’s pointed stare as he pulls his hand out of Maine’s and goes back to his chair. The medic ignores them both.

“So we’ve got multiple fractured ribs, some bruising, yesterday’s minor concussion...” Her slim hands are gently pressing against Maine’s side, his forearm, his temples, almost absently as she goes on. “Not much left to do except get some real rest tonight.” She glances at her datapad before moving on. “And then we’ve got this little situation here.” She reaches out to touch Maine’s throat.

Wash doesn’t really know what happens but he’s on his feet and Maine’s sitting up, jaw clenched, a low noise rumbling in his chest, and the medic’s got her hand on the pistol at her side.

“Stand down,” she says firmly. Wash glances at Maine, who gives him a completely unfathomable look, and slowly sits back down on his uncomfortable chair. “Now, obviously this is a sensitive topic for you. I apologize.” She looks down at Maine and crosses her arms. He huffs at her. “I don’t know what happened or what kinds of medical facilities you had when the injury occurred, but judging from the tissue, that’s at least four years old? Five?” Maine nods slowly, and his eyes flick over to Wash. “We could try a throat reconstruction.”

There’s a dull ringing in Wash’s ears. The room is dead silent.

Maine gestures for her datapad.

`Do you think I need it?` he types, and the look on his face is chilling as he hands it back to the medic.

 

 

Wash falls asleep two hours after Maine does, and wakes up to a hand on his leg yet again. This time Maine’s eyes are bright and lucid, wide-awake.

“Morning,” Maine informs him, and Wash rubs at his eyes so hard he sees stars. That was some unexpectedly unbroken sleep.

“How are you feeling?” Wash grunts, sitting up, and Maine grunts back at him. “I’m willing to bet you’ll have to stay in here another night. Till the evening, at the very least.”

Maine just grunts again, lower and more annoyed.

Wash leans back in the chair and runs a hand through his hair (hello, guess who needs a shower), then crosses his arms and sighs.

“We need to talk about what happened,” Wash says. Maine’s face starts to protest, and Wash raises a hand. “Not–– here. We can get quarters here at the base and talk it over, but we need to talk about... that.”

Maine makes a _no shit_ face at him and rolls his eyes. They also desperately need a plan of action now, but Wash leaves that unsaid.

He’s vaguely aware of having hauled all of their shit into the medbay room (well, _room_ , that’s generous; it’s just a huge hall with screens partitioning off beds) after helping some medics get Maine out of his undersuit, so he shuffles around the room and discovers the somehow-not-too-haphazard stack of their armor crates and duffels.

If it’s morning now and it was night the last time he woke up, then that means–– - well, okay, Wash might have lost track of time and he’s not _entirely_ sure how long it’s been since his last shower, but he is definitely overdue. It seems like they’ll have an abundance of free time for a while, at least, so Wash nods at Maine and heads for the showers.

 

 

It’s an uneventful day, barring the explosive argument Maine gets into with the medic (who ends up threatening to sedate him if he doesn’t spend the goddamn night in the medbay, there’s still risk of internal bleeding, _sit down_ ).

Wash takes some time to stretch around his still-tender cracked ribs and to update the travel log he’s keeping out of habit, and by the end of the day he’s not only impatient, but starting to get anxious. Maine had actually spent most of the day alternating between sleeping and (grudgingly) resting, which is good, but Wash still can’t help worrying that something’s wrong, even though the likelihood of that drops with every minute.

A nurse drops by in the afternoon to check on Maine and let them know that they’re now clear to leave at 1600 hours, at which both Maine and Wash let out a relieved sigh.

“Just a few more hours.” Wash mutters. Maine sighs again, more resoundingly this time, and lets his head fall back onto the bed.

 

 

“Congratulations,” the medic says with enormous disinterest, now wearing a nametag that reads _Tannen_ , “you’re officially cleared to leave. _However–_ ” She raises a halting hand, and Maine narrows his eyes up at her. “–I highly recommend that you take it easy for the next few days.” She rounds on Wash. “ _You_ , keep an eye on him. Doing something reckless will only hurt you two in the long run, so for your own sakes, keep it under control for at _least_ two more days. Look for warning signs – new bruising on the chest, difficulty breathing, nosebleeds, the like.”

She looks at them expectantly.

“Understood,” Wash supplies, and Maine huffs quietly. She inclines her head.

Maine shoots the medic one last cold glare (to which she replies with mild, raised eyebrows) and waits until she’s gone to swing his legs out of the bed with a relieved half-groan, half-sigh.

Wash puts a hand on Maine’s shoulder and Maine stands up, taking Wash’s hand with him, then does the (completely) unexpected and moves forward before Wash can react and this–– yep, that’s a hug.

Wash isn’t going to pretend it’s not weird because it’s _so goddamn weird_ but hey, he’s already here, so he might as well soak up some human contact. It’s weird but it’s genuine, not awkward, and it feels nice so Wash savors it, and Maine is looking at him with unfiltered gratitude when he leans away.

“Let’s get all of this crap out of here,” Wash says because he’s not sure what else to say, and Maine gives him an acquiescent shrug.

 

 

It’s quiet in the small room – the last one, according to the base’s quartermaster, and Wash would take sleeping outside in a storm over sharing overcrowded barracks again, any goddamn day. Sleeping on the floor is a small sacrifice.

Maine’s on his back on the bed when Wash gets out of the shower, holding his datapad a few centimeters above his face, and a part of Wash is _really_ hoping it slips out of his hands and hits him in the face.

Wash hadn’t really realized how much he needed the mindlessness and simplicity that cleaning his equipment would bring. There’s a lot that still needs to be sorted out about what exactly happened, and they’ll get there when Maine’s ready to get there, so Wash keeps his hands busy and lets his brain go blank.

“Wash,” Maine finally says, breaking the relative silence, and Wash looks up to see Maine sitting across from him, hands still and easy on the table.

Well, here they are.

“Did you get a close look at– whatever that was, back there?” Wash asks, without preamble.

Maine shakes his head slowly, unsure.

“Enough to tell something is–” He gestures harshly.

“They all missed,” Wash says, and frowns. “This was a hit squad, an ambush. There’s nothing else they could have been. Hit squads don’t just _miss_.”

“Not used to those guns,” Maine supplies. “Not… compensating right.”

“I’ve never heard any gun make a noise like that. Not even Covenant weapons.”

“Fell apart.”

“What?”

“Fell apart,” Maine repeats, moving his fingers in a smooth wave. “Soldier dropped, fell into pieces.”

“That doesn’t make _sense_ ,” Wash snaps. “This planet is––” He gestures, unable to find the right words. “If those guns were really something new, then all of this is just making less and less sense. Neither the New Republic nor the Federal Army has the resources for new tech. _Especially_ not to waste new tech on some kind of–” He pauses, frustrated, searching. “–I don’t know, suicide mission.”

“Counselor,” Maine suggests quietly.

“But _why?_ ” It takes a lot of effort for Wash to not slam a fist down on the table in frustration. “Chorus is a backwater planet. The UNSC doesn’t give a shit about it, and neither did the Insurrection. Besides, I can’t imagine that the Counselor isn’t still on the run. He can’t have any resources for new tech. Those Covvie weapons the bandits had in Triymal, I can see how those could have ended up on the black market here. But this? _New tech?_ None of this makes–”

Maine reaches out and very carefully, very gently stills Wash’s hands, lays the half-assembled and on-the-verge-of-getting-jammed gun on the table.

“–sense,” Wash finishes in a mutter.

“Not any merc group I recognized,” Maine continues, and his voice wheezes in the specific way that means it’s about to go. Wash immediately pulls his hands out of Maine’s and reaches into his duffel for their datapads. “But, don’t know all.”

“So, to sum it up,” Wash says, handing Maine his datapad, “we’ve got–”

`Locus’s ID,` Maine types. `I’m assuming that squad we ran into was a direct result of finally being able to ping that ID. Which–` Maine makes a face. `–in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done.`

Wash shrugs.

“We’ve got some weird-ass weapons,” he adds, thinking out loud, adding to his mental list. “Something we need to keep an eye on. If this is experimental tech, why would it be on Chorus? _How?_ ”

Maine nods, eyes unfocused, deep in thought.

And we’ve also got Locus’s last bearings, Maine adds. The only thing worth heading for on this side of the continent is this base. Or Cina itself.

“And?”

Maine shrugs, and thinks for a bit before typing.

I think it’s safe to assume that Locus is crossing the sea and heading for Oljam. An outbound signal from that strike team pinged twice, both times over the water. I could be wrong, but– He shrugs again.

“That sounds logical,” Wash says, and leans over the table on his elbows. “So what, we cross the ocean too?”

Maine makes another face.

“What?”

“Not easy,” Maine grunts out loud.

“But would it be worth the trouble?”

“Depends on trouble.”

 

 

“Spar tomorrow,” Maine says as he’s dimming down all the lights, half a question in his voice.

“No,” Wash replies flatly. “You’re supposed to take it easy.”

Maine rolls his eyes at that, and pulls off his tee.

“ _Easy_ sparring. Gotta move,” he counters. “Could use it.”

Wash narrows his eyes.

“Easy sparring,” he finally concedes, then laughs helplessly, gestures at Maine’s chest. “You look like you got trampled.”

“Feel like it,” Maine grunts back.

Wash cracks his back, pulls off his own shirt; Maine stretches gingerly, hand on his ribcage. It’s clear neither of them are about to do any nightly cool-downs, and Wash is about to reach for his bedroll when Maine and steps closer to Wash, slowly, openly, looking carefully at Wash’s face. Wash lets Maine put a light hand on his biceps, carefully gauges what’s on his face instead of pulling back.

“Wash,” Maine says quietly, “you saved my life.”

Wash has no idea what to say to that. That it was no big deal? That it wasn’t a problem? That Wash felt the telltale ice-in-his-gut fear of losing Maine for the first time in _years_ and it’s (more than) slightly terrifying? That it finally clicked for Wash that this is _Maine_ , however different, however changed – it’s _Maine?_

“I– guess I did,” Wash says instead, ever so eloquently. “I mean,” he tries again, “you saved my life back in the canyon. Probably.” Not quite an improvement. “You’re– my partner. That’s what… partners do.”

Maine is just looking at him with something in his face that Wash can’t quite pick apart – a little bit of amusement, some gratitude, a hint of genuine affection.

“Thank you,” Maine says. He lets his hand fall away from Wash’s arm. “Pay off life debt by sparring tomorrow. Even trade.” There’s an edge of teasing to his voice, and Wash knows he’s trying to lighten the situation.

Wash scoffs in response, shakes his head, and starts pulling his bedroll out from where it’s packed neatly in a duffel. Maine’s hand appears from nowhere to push it back.

“What?”

“Slept in a chair for two nights,” Maine says, and inclines his head towards the bed.

“Absolutely not,” Wash snorts. “You’re injured. You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

Maine gives him a deadpan look, then looks pointedly at the bed again, and then back at Wash.

Oh. Okay.

So Wash shrugs and shoves the bedroll back where it was, shimmies out of his pants as Maine moves back towards the bed. He realizes just how badly his back has been acting up only when he lies down and he can’t stop himself from groaning quietly in relief at the feeling of a _mattress_.

Maine turns his head to frown at him, and Wash just makes a face.

“Go to sleep,” he mutters, because he’s also suddenly realized how fucking _tired_ he is, so he turns onto his side and is immediately unconscious.

 

 

It’s early morning when he wakes up and he feels _rested_ , for once, despite having jerked awake at least twice during the night. He can feel the weight of Maine’s body right next to him so he opens his eyes and sure enough, Maine’s broad shoulders are right at eye level.

God, he can see the scarred exit wounds from Tucker’s sword, burned dark against his shoulder. It’s a fucking _miracle_ that Maine is still in one piece.

Wash almost reaches out to touch Maine’s neck, _almost_ , because it’s covered in the same scars as Wash’s neck is, tracks mirroring fingernails clawing desperately at the neural implant. Instead he closes his eyes again and clears his thoughts away from implants and AI, takes a deep breath, and confronts an uncomfortable question.

Does he get along with Maine? Yes. Do they work well together? Yep.

Is this all just nostalgia lingering from the days where everything was seamless and the damage in their lives didn’t come from AI wrecking their heads, or is there an actual, real emotional connection he’s starting to feel between himself this new Maine, this older and harsher Maine, this Maine who’s re-forged himself out of smoldering wreckage?

Well.

He squeezes his eyelids together and hold back a groan because _god_ , honestly, not shit he should be trying to sort out when the person in question is asleep right next to him.

Wash rolls out of bed, yawns, stretches, and lets himself fall down into some pushups, lets his body settle into easy, mechanical movements.

There’s no doubt that he feels some amount of nostalgia where Maine is concerned. Hell, where _any_ other Freelancer left alive (read: Carolina) is concerned. He’s out of that sucking black hole he’d been in during his tenure with the Recovery force; he cared about his teammates, goddammit, and nothing changes that. Not even an unhealthy amount of emotional damage.

He thinks about the way South’s head jerked back, and then thinks about the way his muscles are starting to burn.

So yes, he tells himself, there’s an amount of nostalgia where Maine is concerned. The _real_ question is whether that nostalgia is clouding his judgement, or whether it’s just… a part of his relationship with Maine.

He’s so focused on sorting this shit out that he doesn’t notice that Maine’s awake until he lowers himself down to the floor and Wash actually jerks himself out of his rhythm, jarring to a stop at the top of his push-up. Maine briefly meets his eyes before starting on his own set of pushups, and Wash takes a breath to reorient himself before finishing his last dozen.

“Still want to spar?” Wash asks, standing up slowly, cracking his back, rolling his shoulders.

Maine grunts out an affirmative.

 

 

They head for a modest training area after pulling on some clothes and eating a protein bar each for quick calories, and Wash is surprisingly _excited_. He hasn’t sparred for a long time, and neither the skirmishes in the past month nor the “skirmishes” against the Reds in the canyon actually _count_.

Most of the mat spaces are open, with a few other partners and groups working out on their own. One person even has weights, the lucky asshole.

“Are you _sure_ you want to do this?” Wash asks again, toeing off his boots. Maine huffs indignantly at him and pushes his boots neatly next to Wash’s before stepping onto the mat.

“Been a while,” Maine says once Wash is squarely opposite him, and Wash knows that he means this, specifically. God.

“Maybe this time neither of us will end up with a gash in our faces,” Wash replies before he can stop himself, and Maine laughs out loud, grinning wide.

“Maybe,” he says, and holds out a fist.

“Go easy on yourself,” Wash reminds him, and taps his fist against Maine’s.

“On self, okay,” Maine says, “On you? Never.”

_God_. Wash missed this.

He bounces on the balls of his feet, getting his bearings, and starts feeling his way around the mat, the way it feels under his weight, gauges the distance between him and Maine. Maine’s doing the same, shifting his weight easily, getting his feet moving, flexing his hands in and out of fists. Maine doesn’t seem to want to make the first move so Wash darts in to close the distance between them; Maine steps past him easily and they’re opposite each other again, still gauging each other’s actions.

Maine moves in low and Wash lets himself get taken down, back slamming into the mat, arms out to slap away the momentum, and he immediately swings back and rolls Maine just as easily as he used to, breaks through Maine’s crossed ankles with a measured elbow in the pressure point along his inner thigh, slides out of his grip and back on his feet.

“Really?” Wash asks, grinning, and offers Maine a hand up.

Maine takes it and pulls himself up, and then immediately lunges forward using the momentum, heads in straight for a tackle. Wash _barely_ manages to essentially stumble out of Maine’s way and snaps a kick out at him, catching him squarely in the gut, delaying him in recovering from the tackle and giving Wash just enough time to create some distance.

That first takedown was just to test the waters, he and Maine both know that. They _also_ both know that the second they hit the ground for real, Wash loses any advantage he has over Maine.

_Although,_ Wash thinks, blocking a swing and countering with another kick, Maine _has_ changed and he _is_ slightly less of an all-out brawler now. He’s got more speed, as evidenced by the kick that’s rendered Wash’s left arm temporarily numb, and he’s using his body weight differently.

Wash is _almost_ tempted to take the fight to the ground to satisfy his curiosity but it feels so good to spar like this and to be back in this rhythm of give and take, ducking and weaving comfortably around each other. He can’t hear anything except for his breaths and the pounding of his heart and the scuff of their feet on the mat.

Maine closes in too fast and Wash manages to duck them into a clinch, a stalemate, breaths already rough, and Wash readjusts his grip on Maine’s biceps and Maine readjusts his grip––

Wash breaks and scrambles back so fast he fucking _trips_ , falls flat on his ass in shock and Maine is staring at him in concern and fuck, Wash would be staring at _himself_ in concern if it were possible.

“Wash?” Maine asks carefully, not moving closer.

“I’m fine,” Wash says, and gets to his feet, blinking back the flood of memories that he absolutely doesn’t want to deal with right now. “I’m just–” He swallows. “You touched my–” He gestures helplessly towards the back of his neck.

Maine’s face immediately sinks.

One last shiver rolls its way down Wash’s back and he clamps down hard on the memory of the Meta’s hands scraping over his empty AI slot, shoves those thoughts back in their place where they belong.

“Sorry,” Maine says, very gently, and Wash knows he means it for more than just the accidental brush just now. “Stop?”

“Nah,” Wash replies, and rolls his shoulders back. “I’m okay.”

Maine frowns in concern.

“No, really,” Wash insists, and he’s not lying. “I’m okay. You just– surprised me.”

Maine gives him a skeptical shrug in response and reaches out a fist. Wash taps it, then exhales and shifts his weight around, slides himself back into the state of mind where he’d been before that… snafu.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Wash repeats as Maine throws a half-hearted and easily-avoided punch, and he returns the hit with the momentum from the parry. Maine shrugs acquiescently before squaring up and Wash flexes his fists, shifts his weight, and lowers his chin.

It’s easy to get back into the easy rhythm of sparring again, their breaths are coming heavily again, and Wash _loves_ this ebb and flow. Reading Maine is easy like it always is but he’s a challenge anyways, he’s faster and trickier and more willing to tease and fake. They’ve abandoned all restraint within minutes and it’s all-out war in the best way; Maine throws him bodily to the ground and Wash uses the momentum to catapult himself back up, slam a foot straight into Maine’s shoulder, and there’s a very small part of his brain reminding him that Maine is still injured, you asshole.

They flow easily between hand-to-hand and grappling on the ground and Wash is actually _having fun_ , learning Maine’s new quirks and adding to his lexicon. He’s still reluctant to fully take the fight to the ground because Maine is still considerably more massive than him but it’s inevitable, and Wash puts up a hell of a fight when Maine manages to get him on the ground for good.

Maine manages to pin him after an impressive struggle, and Wash is arching his back as far as it’ll bend to worm his way out of a shoulder lock when he notices the collection of feet bordering the mat. Feet that belong to legs that belong to an _entire crowd of people_. Maine finally gets his grip on the lock and Wash gasps out in surprise.

“Maine–” He smacks Maine’s side with his free hand. “Maine, goddammit, _tap_.”

Maine lets go of him and sits back on Wash’s waist, pushing his sweat-soaked hair out of his face, and then comes to the same realization as Wash. He glances down at Wash, brows furrowed and clearly just as weirded out by this, then carefully gets to his feet and offers Wash his hand.

“Impressive,” comes a voice. Wash turns around to see someone standing with arms crossed, eyebrows up.

“Can I help you?” Wash says brusquely, and on second thought, maybe he could have been slightly less rude. Oh well.

“My name’s Aurrey,” she replies, and her voice is lilting in a way that betrays her as a Chorus native. “Captain of the second training company here at North Cina Base. Couple of these scrubs couldn’t stop gawking at you two, so I turned it into a teachable moment.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re very good at sparring,” she says slowly, and a couple of the people gathered around her snicker. Wash takes a real look at the small crowd and _god_ , they’re practically kids. Most of them don’t look a day over eighteen.

Maine nods a thank-you at her, and claps a hand on Wash’s shoulder. The captain looks at him scrutinizingly, eyes flicking down to his throat, and then a look of dawning realization crosses her face.

“You’re Muin, aren’t you?”

Maine gives her a look that’s probably unreadable to her (to Wash, it reads as something akin to embarrassed humility) and then nods again. A ripple of murmurs passes through the cadets and everyone presses in just an inch closer to them. Wash is _real_ damn curious.

“Consider yourselves lucky, scrubs,” Aurrey says, half-turning to address her company, voice booming. “And don’t forget this. It’ll be the most interesting thing your grubby little asses will see for the rest of your stay here on the lovely planet of Chorus.” A few nervous laughs, a few nervous smiles. Aurrey turns back.

“Who’s your partner?” she asks Maine, and then looks at Wash. Her tone is almost hostile, half-sarcastic, and Wash’s list of questions is starting to grow on an exponential curve.

“Wash.”

“Had a Wash in my last training company,” she says, and holds out her hand. Wash offers his own in return. Her grip is like iron. “Real helpless kid. I’m glad _you_ can hold your own, at least.” She turns around to glare at her company with that last comment.

“I’m also not a cadet in training,” Wash replies, which earns him a few snickers, and a smirk from Aurrey. Ah, the halcyon days.

“I’ll leave you be,” she says, and nods at both of them. “You wouldn’t remember me, Muin, but you and Lucía saved my life and my partner’s life during that siege in Arcaip. Thanks.”

Maine gives her another small nod in return, and then touches Wash’s shoulder before making to turn away.

“Excuse me––”

A small voice interrupts them, and it takes Wash a good few seconds to find its owner. A petite (tiny, in fact, short and stocky with a fierceness that reminds Wash of Connie) cadet shoulders her way to the front of the crowd and addresses Wash directly.

“You’re half his size. How did you get out of his grip? How did you _beat_ him?”

Wash frowns. “Beat” is a pretty strong word to be using when it comes to a) sparring and b) Maine, but after glancing at the training company peppered with aggressive, smug faces, Wash is pretty sure he sees what’s going on. He’s nowhere near qualified to do this, but he’ll damn well try.

Maine gets Aurrey’s attention and raises his eyebrows, asking for permission, and after the blankness on her face goes on for too long, Wash glances at Maine and cuts in.

“Do you mind?” he asks, and when she looks back at Maine, he gestures again.

“Sure,” she says, and shrugs. “Cadet Intala, if you squander this opportunity, you’ll be doing suicide runs for the next three days for interrupting.”

The cadet in front of Wash lifts her chin defiantly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Another murmur ripples through the training company and they all shift again, spilling around the mat more evenly, and Wash realizes that there are older faces starting to come into the crowd. _Ugh_. Talk about regrets.

“Mai–” Wash stops himself mid-word and frowns, then looks up at Maine, thinking about the best way to do this, and then looks back at the cadet. “Are you ready, uh, Cadet?”

“Yes, sir.”

_Weird_. Talk about things Wash doesn’t get called.

He gets a split-second warning before Maine lunges in at him and he forces himself to _not_ evade it and to let Maine take him down, and his back meets the mat again.

Maine holds a guard above him, waiting for his move; Wash untucks his head from Maine’s shoulder to make eye contact with that cadet before kicking up and over with as much exaggerated slowness as he can manage, pushing through Maine’s grip and to his feet in a movement that’s practically second nature to him, even after all this time.

Maine’s on his back now with a pleased look on his face, and Wash offers him a hand up before looking back at the cadet.

“Alright,” he says, “so at the apex, there’s a pressure point–”

“Thank you, sir,” she says, almost distractedly, and Wash can hear the cogs whirring in her head. _Good_.

“Interruptions, Cadet Intala,” barks Aurrey, and the crowd – it’s a real crowd, now – snickers quietly at her. Wash can see a flush creeping up her cheeks. “So you understand everything, Cadet, is that right?” Aurrey turns to her company. “Cadet Merle, into the ring.”

A cadet that’s _easily_ twice Intala’s size steps onto the mat and cracks his neck, cockiness oozing out of every inch, and Wash can feel his blood starting to boil.

“Cadet Intala, Cadet Merle, face off.” Maine pulls Wash back with a hand on his shoulder, face lined with concern. Intala holds out a hand for Merle to shake, and Wash can see Intala bite the inside of her cheek as Merle returns her handshake with an unnecessarily white-knuckled grip. “First cadet up off the ground gets to sleep in an hour. The other gets to wake up an hour early for suicide runs. _Start!_ ”

Merle doesn’t throw Intala to the ground so much as he _slams_ her, and a few dark mutters come from the people standing outside the ring. Merle follows up into a top guard just like Maine had and the smugness on his face makes Wash see red––

––and then Intala flips him over neatly and, just like Wash had been trying to tell her, breaks out of his grip right at the apex of her turn, tiny sharp elbow digging deep into the tender flesh of Merle’s inner thigh, probably “accidentally” digging into a few other things along the way.

“Off the ground, Merle,” Aurrey barks, and she’s looking at Intala with something akin to respect on her face. “Shake hands.”

Merle’s face is ugly, and he sneers as he jerkily holds out his hand. Intala narrows her eyes up at him, and then, almost too quick for Wash to track, snaps out a fist and punches him clean in the nose.

The older mercs in the crowd burst into gleeful whoops, almost covering the yells of pain coming from Merle, hands muffling his mouth as he’s trying to stem the gush of blood.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Intala says blithely. “I must have pinched a nerve, jerky movements like that.”

The crowd of people is starting to disperse, breaking off and heading towards the other spaces on the training floor, and Wash realizes that a good chunk of time must have passed since he and Maine first came down here.

“Cadets!” shouts Aurrey, still looking straight at Intala, “I want to see some laps! Let’s get _going!_ That means _you_ , Yawsin.” She finally turns to look at Merle. “Cadet Merle, get off the ground. You’ll be joining us on our run when you’re finished cleaning this mat.”

“But–” He looks up at her from where he’s kneeling, face incredulous and covered in blood.

“ _Now_ , cadet,” Aurrey barks. Merle walks off the mat with a darkly betrayed look on his face.

Wash is… slightly uncomfortable. You never really realize how awful military (paramilitary? militia? whatever it is on Chorus) training is until you see it as a quasi-outsider.

“You didn’t have to stay and deal with Intala,” Aurrey says, crossing her arms but smiling anyways.

Maine shrugs, and Wash doesn’t reiterate what his posture is saying: that there was no reason to _not_ help her.

“Regardless, thanks,” Aurrey continues, “for humoring us all, and for, well, doing what you do.” Yep, Wash sure has a list of questions to ask. “And if I’d known you were looking for a partner, I’d have sent in my application.”

Wash is pretty sure he knows what that look on her face is now, and he briefly makes eye contact with Maine. Maine shrugs at Aurrey again, dismissively this time. Wash replies with a knee-jerk reaction.

“I didn’t know you needed an application to hang around M– him.”

Aurrey looks at him oddly, mouth quirking up and brows together.

“That’s the second time you’ve done that.” She makes eye contact with Wash only long enough to to reply to him, then looks back at Maine, eyes narrowed scrutinizingly. “You call him something different?”

And Wash feels an intense rush of possessiveness as he answers, mouth twisted up wryly, “Yeah, I do,” and leaves it at that.

 

 

The second the door to their room closes behind them, Wash opens his mouth, and the second Wash opens his mouth, Maine cuts him off.

“Gonna shower,” he says, tapping his own chest for emphasis. “Then you. _Then_ ask.”

Wash huffs out a loud sigh and Maine shrugs at him one more time before closing the bathroom door behind him.

Well, that’s frustrating, but not unforeseen. Wash takes the three minutes that Maine’s in the shower to stretch and loosen up some of the muscles he hasn’t worked hard for a while. Brawling on the ground actually did fucking _wonders_ for his back, thank god, and stretching through it is more painless than it’s been for a while.

He patiently contains his questions until he’s out of the shower and fully clothed; he feels refreshed and _awake_ , for once, fully functional without any pressing exhaustion, and he looks over as Maine sits down in front of the bare, simple desk squeezed in the corner of the room.

“So,” Wash asks, sitting down on an armor crate kitty-corner from Maine at the desk, “what’s Muin?”

Maine holds up a fist, and it takes Wash a few brain cycles to register that he’s signing.

“‘M?’ What–” Maine. Meta. Duh. “–Oh. _Muin_ , though?”

“‘Em,’ ‘Mun,’, ‘eme,’” Maine says, and shrugs. “Chorus says ‘muin.’”

“What, the letter ‘muin?’”

Maine gives him a weird half-nod, half-shrug combination that amounts to _I guess that’s how it is, don’t fuckin’ ask me why_.

“Alright,” Wash says, accepting that at face value, and he shrugs back. “So.”

Maine meets his eyes for a good ten seconds before relenting with a sigh, looking away and shifting in his seat.

“I’m a merc here,” Maine says slowly, like he’s thinking it through. “Sam, Lucía–” He pauses, thins his lips, and then reaches down to pull out his datapad. “Here for a year, little more. Sam, from Chorus.”

`When Sam and Lucía left Chorus, it wasn’t this bad,` Maine continues. `They were gone for maybe six months. I helped them out–`

“You saved their lives,” Wash interrupts, and it’s half a question.

`I did.` Maine pauses. `They offered for me to come back to Chorus with them. They knew I’d–` He pauses again, and then changes his mind. `They knew that I was looking for a place to start over.`

Wash quietly lets him continue. There’s nothing for him to say.

`I helped Sam and Lucía as best I could after we got here. Escorting refugees, helping both sides run missions, that kind of thing. Sam and Lucía have a rule – don’t take missions if they put civilians in danger. Well–` He shrugs. `–there really aren’t many civilians left on Chorus, but we do our best. Not a lot of people used to follow that rule. I guess I kind of made a name for myself, working with Sam and Lucía.`

“I don’t understand,” Wash says.

`Sam and Lucía are– `He pauses yet again, shifts like he’s trying to find a word. `Everyone knows who they are. They’re the people that you go to. I can use their names anywhere to get what I need. I can–` Another pause. Maine takes a quiet breath. `–use ‘Muin’ like that, too. Mercs know me. Usually it’s the armor that gets recognized, though.`

“Who _are_ you?” Wash asks. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, and not one he particularly feels like scrambling to recover from. Maine looks him dead in the eyes, face open.

“Old partner,” he says, and shrugs. “Old teammate.”

“You are _not_ the same p–”

Maine smacks a hand down on the table and stands up, and Wash realizes he’s standing too, hackles raised, bristling.

“Think _you_ haven’t changed?” Maine snaps. “Think _I_ don’t–” He exhales sharply. “In Freelancer, working for Chairman– two different people. Now? Three. Think it doesn’t lose me, too?”

Well.

“I’m sorry,” Wash says quietly, after an acceptably long pause, and slowly sits down. “I just–– this is still taking some getting used to.”

“Fair,” Maine grunts, just as quietly. “Feel the same.”

“I guess that’s something we just have to… deal with.”

“Guess so.”

Wash bites back a smile.

“But in the end, I guess you’re still the person who threw me through a window the first time we sparred.”

Maine doesn’t have as much success in hiding his own smile.

“Justified.”

 

 

Their boots are thumping a little too loudly as they head down the hallway, and Wash is reminded uncomfortably of going to a CO’s office. There’s the same overwhelming feeling that he did something wrong somehow, that same press of anxiety, and it’s almost comical.

The door is wide open, and Wash lags a step so that Maine can walk in first. The room is small but open, neat, sparse. Maine clears his throat quietly, and the person behind the desk looks up at them.

“Ah. The dramatic entrance pair.”

Wash bristles immediately, but doesn’t say anything. She stands up from her chair with a quiet groan and gives them a very tired smile.

“Metyna Parnit,” she says, and holds out her hand to shake. It’s a simple prosthetic, worn but carefully cared for, and the whirr of joints in her palm is comforting. Maine gives her a small, genuine smile as he shakes her hand. “Call me Parnit. You’re here for a reason, so what do you need?”

Wash glances up at Maine before answering.

“We need to get to Rasst,” he replies. “I know it’s not easy, but…” He trails off awkwardly and gestures.

Parnit sits back down behind her desk with a heavy groan. She’s about their age, but it took Wash more than just a glance to read that. Her face is worn and drawn, eyes tired, hair streaked with grey. Wash wonders if this is what other people see when they look at him.

“Well,” she says, “you’re shit out of luck.”

Wash feels an annoying weight drop into his stomach. Maine makes as if to say something, then reconsiders, and doesn’t.

“I say this,” she clarifies, looking at them sternly, “because the only transport available is civilian transport. We’ve got a dropship that’s grounded on the other side of the Seyyal Sea right now. If you want to get to Rasst any time this month, you need to go the civilian route.”

“And how hard is the civilian route?”

“Depends on how convincingly un-military you can be.” Parnit raises her eyebrows pointedly, and Wash realizes he’s been standing perfectly at parade rest.

Well.

Maine throws Wash an amused look before signing clearly and carefully at Parnit. Wash is pleased that he can now recognize each of the signs that make up “Do you speak USL?”

“Sorry, but I can’t sign,” she says, shaking her head.

Maine shrugs and pulls his datapad out of his pocket, and gestures at it with a question.

“Works for me,” Parnit replies.

`If it’s the only way, we’ll do it,` Maine types out. `Do people do this often?`

“What, use civilian transport?” Maine nods. “Often enough.”

“Do they _succeed_ often?” Wash asks.

“Often enough,” Parnit says, half-amused. “It all depends on how well you can spin your story.” Maine gives Wash a _look_ , and Wash tries hard to not roll his eyes. “You two seem close–”

“Occupational hazard,” Wash mutters under his breath.

“–but that’s no marker of how well you can lie through your teeth.” She crosses her arms. “I’ve seen it all. Strangers acting like they’ve been married for 20 years, lifelong partners failing miserably at being on the same wavelength, you name it. Getting seats on a flight is a matter of forged IDs and stolen credits, that’s the easy part.”

Wash wonders for a second just what even counts as an ID on a planet like this. Or as forged, for that matter.

`Weapons? Armor?` types Maine, brow furrowing, deep in thought.

“Boats go between here and Rasst every three days.” She holds up a hand, stopping Wash’s question before he can even say it. “Smuggling equipment is hard enough. Trying to fit people in would change a steady operation into a catastrophically risky one. We use Pelicans to transport people whenever we can, and _that’s_ unreliable, but weapons, ammo, gear–” She waves her hand. “–food, crops, anything like that, we can keep a steady flow with the boats.”

`What do we need to get into Cina?` Maine asks, and the question feels final. Parnit leans back in her chair and cracks her neck.

“Forged IDs, forged travel permits, a few maps, and one hell of a cover story.”

 

As it turns out, forging IDs and travel permits is a fairly streamlined process at North Cina Base, requiring only a photo and some short answers to short questions. Wash wonders just how often people need to forge IDs and travel permits for themselves, given how quick and painless this is, and given the ten or so people that had queued up behind them in less than five minutes.

They get politely informed that all of their documents will be ready in four hours, which gives them time for getting food, updating maps, and restocking ammo. _God_ , it already feels like they’ve been here forever.

Being in the same place for more than one night – for the third night in a row, no less – is throwing Wash off completely. He’s definitely not complaining about having a good space to get in a solid evening workout or about having a shower or about having a bed, but it’s _weird_. It’s weird as hell to be able to walk without watching his back, to eat a meal (a _hot_ meal, no less) without wolfing it down, to have _time_.

The slow wind-down of the evening is disorientating as hell; they pick up their shiny new forged documents exactly as scheduled and Wash is surprised to find that there’s a datachip tucked in between two of his IDs that’s got timetables, maps, routes, things to avoid saying, practically an entire mission dossier. He’s not arrogant enough to think that this was done just for them; this is probably just standard fare for anyone trying to travel under the radar.

He’s trying to figure out what they could possibly _do_ during the night since they don’t need to switch off being on watch when he notices Maine’s posture change from where he’d been at the usual “slightly defensive” all day to “definitely evasive.” They’re about halfway through the trek across the entire base back to the barracks and Maine is now actively trying to hide something, now that he’s noticed Wash notice, so Wash stops.

“Maine.”

Maine stops obligingly, and Wash scrutinizes him, eyes narrowed. Maine’s jaw is tight and it’s not so much that he’s _hiding_ something, it’s more–

“Your nose is bleeding.” The list of things that the medic had told them to watch out for runs through his head and Wash grits his teeth because okay, sure, it’s not like he wouldn’t be doing the same thing in Maine’s place, but– “Back to the medbay. Right now.”

“‘M fine,” Maine grunts, and stands his ground.

“Given that you were recently nearly crushed by your armor, I’d say there’s a good chance you’re _not_ ,” Wash snaps back, grabbing Maine by the biceps.

“Wash–” There’s something different in his face now, something other than just plain stubbornness. Wash crosses his arms. Maine’s jaw tightens. “Get nosebleeds sometimes. Not often now. From AI.”

Wash feels ice crawl through his stomach. He’d had pretty bad implant nosebleeds too, but– god. One AI had been more than enough for him.

“Look,” Wash says, softening his voice, “there’s a chance it could be something other than that. We should go back.”

Maine scrutinizes him.

“ _Worried?”_ he jabs, the corner of his mouth twitching up.

“Ye– Am I _not allowed_ to be worried?” he says indignantly, and he can feel the color rising in his face. “Let’s just– go to the medbay, get this over with, go to sleep, and get a route planned tomorrow.”

 

 

Wash wakes up to the distinct feeling that something is wrong, and it takes a couple of seconds for consciousness to settle in.

His first, overwhelmed-with-dread thought is that the medic made a mistake and that Maine’s injuries are way worse than they’d seemed. And then he takes in Maine’s ragged breaths, the little shudders in his shoulders, the way every muscle is too tight.

“Maine.”

He flinches, full-bodied, at the sound of his name. Wash would feel bad, but he knows that this is better than letting him fester inside his own head.

Maine glances over at him in the barest sign of acknowledgement and Wash slowly sits up, carefully watching him for any sign that would point to bad. His breaths are heavy, uneven, and he drags a shaking hand through the cold sweat on his face before finally meeting Wash’s eyes.

Wash keeps his body language as open as he possibly can, gives no signs of rebuke as Maine reaches out to put a hand on Wash’s shoulder and squeezes so tightly that Wash can feel his circulation starting to get cut off. Maine takes a few shaky breaths like that, and then, unexpectedly, moves his hand to briefly cup Wash’s face before sliding his hand back down to rest with a little more ease on Wash’s shoulder.

“Alive,” Maine says, so quietly that Wash almost misses it, and Maine squeezes his eyes shut before bonelessly pushing himself up off of the bed and practically stumbling towards the bathroom. The shower starts going almost immediately after Maine closes the door.

Well, Wash slept a decent amount, so he figures he might as well get the day started. Maine takes (slightly) longer than normal in the shower so by the time he gets out, Wash is done with a solid round of pushups and is stretching through some tightness in his hips. He stands up straight when Maine quietly closes the door behind him and gives him a very long look. Wash feels an incredibly strong urge to ask Maine what he needs, but somehow the thought of saying it out loud is completely ludicrous.

Maine sits down, very slowly, at the edge of the bed. He’s still got the towel in his hands, as if he’s trying to busy them; the collar of his shirt is damp where beads of water are still rolling out of his hair. Wash slowly keeps moving, slowly starts to gather up his toiletries for a shower, makes it as clear as he can that he’s not trying to rush out of this situation, that he’s trying to keep this open.

“Killed a lot,” Maine says very quietly, right when Wash reaches for the door handle. He turns around. Maine doesn’t meet his eyes. “See ‘em all dead. Almost every night.”

Wash swallows, throat dry. He’s familiar with those dreams. Armor sprawled on the ground, limp, empty. Eyes staring at him through the visor with a single accusation.

“Sometimes–” Maine clenches his jaw. “–can’t remember. Not sure if I killed York, South.” He pauses and then, much quieter: “You.”

Wash exhales slowly and sits down next to Maine, careful to keep space between them. It takes him a few seconds to find his voice.

“The UNSC came to clean up afterwards, on Sidewinder. They asked us what happened, where you were, and where the AI were.” He pauses and looks down at his hands. “Sarge and Grif tried to get me to come with them to the side of the cliff, to check for your body along with the UNSC personnel. I– couldn’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Maine turn his head to look at him. “I wish I’d gone, just to see… _something_. For two weeks straight, every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was–-” He swallows, hard. “Just– armor, all piled up wrong. Your armor.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why–” Maine gestures, unsure. “–react?”

Wash laces his fingers together, tightly, and refuses to make eyes contact with Maine.

“You can lose yourself to an AI when things go wrong,” he says, and it feels like he’s stumbling over his words. “But they can’t wipe you out. Not completely.”

He doesn’t really know how to go on. He also doesn’t really _want_ to go on.

But Maine places a very gentle hand on his knee before standing up, and Wash is pretty sure Maine knows what he’d been trying to say.

 

 

“This dossier has almost everything we could possibly need,” Wash says, flicking through a collection of overnight stay options. “Timetables, maps, everything. It’s all planned around the time between the sea transport with equipment and the civilian air transport.”

“On our own, after,” Maine reminds him.

“Well, _yeah_. Do we even have a plan for that?”

“Old comms facility close to Rasst. Been abandoned, but–” Maine shrugs. “–chance there’s info. Easy.”

He pulls up a map on his datapad and marks the city of Rasst and the comms facility, then leans back in his chair.

“If not, keep pushing towards Armonia, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Wash echoes quietly. “Well, let’s focus on getting across the sea, and hope we’re going in the right direction.” He takes down the comms facility’s coordinates and marks it on his own maps, then tackles the last thing on his mental list. “We still need a cover, for the time we’re in Cina.”

“Not my problem,” Maine replies disinterestedly, tracing his way through a map of the city. Wash scoffs at him.

“So if we run into someone who speaks USL and you fuck it up–”

Maine cuts him off with an exasperated noise and pushes the hologram map away from where it’d been glowing between the two of them, and stares up at Wash, chair tilted back on two legs.

“Fine,” he says. “Idea?”

Wash frowns and takes a few seconds to reply, looks down at his datapad without really reading anything.

“There’s more people over there, right?” Maine gives him a half-shrug that isn’t entirely positive. “So we’re… looking for relatives, maybe. Moving to be closer to friends or family.”

Maine shrugs again, and then narrows his eyes in thought. There’s a sinking feeling in Wash’s stomach as he watches the proverbial lightbulb go off over Maine’s head. The chair thunks back onto all four legs.

“Married.”

“ _What?_ ”

Maine looks at him, eyebrows raised.

“Makes sense,” he says. “Good reason to travel together. Besides, sympathy.”

Wash crosses his arms.

“So we’re about to try and sneak into a military- and merc-phobic city in order to smuggle our asses and our armor onto a transport across the ocean, and your brilliant suggestion is to _pretend we’re married_.”

Maine makes a _you asked, I answered_ sort of gesture. Wash drags his hands down his face.

“I can’t believe I’m considering this,” he mutters.

“Logical,” Maine offers, and shrugs. “Less suspicious, traveling together.”

“Alright, fine,” Wash says, and he can feel one of the last scraps of his dignity fade into nothingness. “If people start acting weird, then we can just– -” The words bottle up in his throat because oh, god, this is actually _incredibly embarrassing_ and if he says anything out loud it’s just going to make it even worse. He clears his throat. “The less detailed this whole… cover story thing is, the easier it’ll be to work with when need be. We just need some–”

“Boundaries.” Maine crosses his arms. “You talk. Good liar. I’ll play along.”

“I can’t just drop something like, ‘hey, by the way, we’re definitely married and not mercs working together’ and expect people to believe me,” Wash reminds him. “I know how to be a soldier, not a civilian.”

Maine processes a thought for a few seconds, then uncrosses his arms.

“Know, not big on being touched, but–”

“It’s okay,” Wash interrupts. He knows what Maine’s getting at. “It’s fine, Maine. I don’t care.”

“Me, anything, anywhere,” Maine says, gesturing to himself and shrugging. “You– shoulders? Back?”

“That’s fine.”

“Hands?”

“It’s _fine_ , seriously–”

“Kissing?”

Wash pauses at that, slightly taken aback, and then appraises him.

“Well, I’ve survived worse.”

Maine rolls his eyes impatiently.

“Serious.”

“I _am_ serious,” Wash retorts, “I really don’t mind. It’s _fine_. This isn’t– this is survival on a mission.”

Maine has a strange look on his face – part surprise, part _gratitude_ , of all things, and something else Wash isn’t sure of – but this is an intensely awkward conversation and Wash would like out, please.

“So.” Wash clears his throat. “The soonest transport across the sea is in two days, and we can send our weapons and armor out on tomorrow’s shipment.”

“Stay in Cina?”

“I guess.” Wash shrugs. “I don’t know whether it’d be better to spend more time there, or less.”

“Less,” Maine guesses, voice pulling up with hesitation. “One night, get on transport in morning.”

“So we’ll stay here for the night, leave for Cina in the morning, stay the night there, then leave the next morning,” Wash sums up. “That sounds.... reasonably safe.”

Maine snorts.

 

 

The journey to Cina is long. A surprisingly civilian-looking shuttle takes Wash, Maine, their gear, and a couple other mercs to a train line and drops them off at a few different train stations; the train towards the city takes up the meat of the day, and Wash even dozes off a few times.

It’s dusk once they get off the train, and Wash feels horrifyingly unbalanced with only a duffel bag and none of his gear. There’s a queue forming where all of the exit signs are pointing, and Wash trades a long look with Maine. Things are going to be much different now, and there’s not much that he or Maine can do about that.

“C’mon,” Wash says quietly, then steps primly out of his comfort zone and reaches out to touch Maine at the small of his back. Surprise flashes across Maine’s face and then he grins with just a _tinge_ of a smirk and puts a hand between Wash’s shoulder blades in return, lightly urging him forward.

Alright. This isn’t too weird. Wash can get used to this. Probably.

He’s about to comment on how worried he is about their appearance when Maine picks up his duffel, slings it over his shoulder, and changes his demeanor entirely. He lets the duffel pull down at his frame, slouches in on himself, lowers his head, and at first glance Wash can barely recognize this person as his partner. Maine almost looks _small_ like this, almost completely unremarkable among the crowd of equally beat-looking people shuffling towards the queuing area.

So Wash forces the military rigidity out of his spine and picks up his duffel as well, then trades another look with Maine before joining the press of bodies moving away from the train platform.

It seems like everything is moving along at a steady pace – streamlined, as it were – and Wash is frankly a little surprised. He’d figured that in a place as uptight about suspicious travelers as this, it’d take more time to get in and out of the city, but whatever’s happening at the gate they’re being funneled into seems to be happening fairly quickly.

Wash pulls the forged documents out of the inner pocket of his jacket and rifles through them – a government ID, nicely scuffed and banged up, some miscellaneous scraps of paper, a few credit chips. It all looks _worn_ , like it’s crap that’s been drifting in his pockets for years. Wash can only hope it’ll serve him well.

Armed guards are directing the flow of people, guiding people towards a row of checkpoints with the kind of efficiency that comes from years of practice. _Armed guards_. The irony of having what essentially amounts to a militia in a city that’s supposed to be a hundred percent civilian and military-free is almost hilarious.

Maine gets directed to a different checkpoint line, and Wash feels a very unfamiliar spike of anxiety wedge itself into his sternum. There is absolutely no way to do anything about this so Wash just keeps shuffling forward and throwing glances at Maine, hoping against hope that he doesn’t come off as suspicious. Regardless of any of his actions, though, the second he opens his mouth, he’s outed as an off-worlder. _That_ is probably going to be the real issue.

At the little booth there’s a stern armed guard standing next to an official who’s got a carefully cultivated air of boredom about them, but their eyes are sharp as they take in the face (and documents) of everyone moving past, quick and efficient in how they process every incoming person.

“Documents.”

Wash hands them over.

“Traveling alone?”

“My–” He looks over at Maine automatically, at the booth over and with one person ahead of him, and their eyes meet. “My spouse.”

They squint down at Wash’s documents and then back up at their screen, one more time, then they hand back his ID and wave him past.

“Welcome to Cina.”

Wash holds in a sigh of relief and readjusts his bag before moving a few meters past the booth and watching as Maine passes through his own booth, looking equally as hiding-relief-y as Wash walks up to him. Wash is feeling (more than slightly) awkward about this situation, but Maine puts a hand on his shoulder as they follow the crowd towards the city proper, and Wash can’t help but be uneasy about how _easy_ that seemed.

And then, as if on cue, a short, quiet alarm blares. Half the people in the crowd pause and look around along with Wash and Maine (Wash tries hard to play this off to himself as blending in with the civilians but no, it’s paranoia), but the source of the commotion isn’t actually immediately clear. Maine nudges him and tips his chin over to one of the far booths.

Sure enough, four armed guards are quickly and efficiently moving to restrain someone, struggling hard, and Wash catches a few words that sound like a vain attempt at an explanation. Everyone who’d stopped to check out the ruckus is starting to turn away like this is something they shouldn’t be acknowledging, so Wash shares a look with Maine and starts moving with the crowd again.

 

 

The trip through the city itself continues to be pretty damn unremarkable, which is only serving to make Wash more and more nervous. Something should have _happened_ by now, or something. Things usually go south much more quickly than this.

Taking the train through the city was unremarkable, walking to their overnight accommodation was unremarkable, getting their room key was unremarkable, and by the time Wash sets his bag down, he’s almost expecting to be ambushed in the small room.

Maine finally looks at him, rolls his eyes, and says, “What?”

“What?”

“Had a stick up your ass the last hour. _What?_ ”

Wash gestures at him indignantly.

“Doesn’t this seem a little too easy?”

Maine rolls his eyes again and half-huffs, half-groans in response.

“Easy so far, can deal with hard when it comes. Take as it is,” he says, and crosses his arms.

Wash crosses his arms in response to Maine crossing his arms, and looks away, because Maine’s right. Whatever.

“Got one night to kill time,” Maine continues, voice more diplomatic. “Warm food downstairs.” And then he gets that _look_ in his eyes and the corner of his mouth curls up and Wash is ready to protest the second Maine opens his mouth again. “Go on a date, _husband?_ ”

 

 

“What’s the sign for ‘spouse?’”

It occurs to Wash, quite belatedly, that it’s something he should know how to say, even with his extremely limited grasp of USL so far. Maine looks up from where he’d been buried in his datapad with the slight grogginess that comes from getting interrupted while in your head, and then slowly, clearly signs at him. Wash puts down the shirt he’d been mending out of sheer restlessness and signs it back. Maine nods.

“‘Husband,’” he continues, then signs, and waits for Wash to sign it back. “‘Married.’” Waits again, nods again when Wash signs it right.

“This is ridiculous,” Wash mutters, but it’s good-natured. He shakes his head with incredulity and picks up his needle and thread again, starts searching for the seam from the inside of the shirt.

Getting food – dinner, he supposes, since it’s well in the evening now – had gone without a hitch, and the pessimist in him is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Penny, thoughts,” Maine says.

“I just… I don’t like this,” Wash admits. “I don’t like _waiting_ here, like sitting ducks. Today was almost too easy.”

“Still?” Maine huffs, but there’s no malice or annoyance in his voice. “Turn out fine. Besides, if caught–” He raises an eyebrow, mouth turning up. “– _really_ think we couldn’t take them?”

 

 

Wash jerks awake with his forehead pressed between Maine’s shoulder blades, and it sort of… takes him a second.

It’s still dark and his heart’s in his throat and it’s very much not time to be awake yet, so he blinks a few times, tries to take as slow a breath as possible, doesn’t move otherwise, swallows down the panic that had woken him up. It’s been a damn weird few days. A damn weird few _weeks_.

Wash can feel his brain make a valiant attempt at spiraling into the usual cycles of anxiety but Maine’s even breaths, the sleepy warmth radiating from him, all of this is grounding Wash so thoroughly that the memories that had woken him are drifting away in record time. It’s quiet, everything is _quiet_ and dark and pulling him back to sleep so he gives in, forehead still pressed against Maine’s back.

 

 

He jolts awake again in the morning, but this time, Maine is awake and on his feet. Getting ready feels empty and unsettling without their armor crates and weapons and with half-empty duffels filled with just clothing and MREs. The anxiety is back full-force, chewing on his nerves, and Maine stops in front of the door after his final sweep of the room, arms crossed, barring Wash from opening it.

“What?” Wash says, frowning.

“ _Relax_ ,” Maine says. “Wound up. Obvious.”

Wash exhales and runs a hand through his hair.

“You _cannot_ tell me that you’re not nervous about this too, Maine.”

Maine uncrosses his arms, relents and admits it with a small nod.

“Lot could go wrong,” he says. “Can only sit and deal with it.” He lowers his voice. “Relax, Wash.”

“You know,” Wash says, fishing the keychip out of his jacket as Maine moves away from the door, “it’s only _obvious_ because you know my tells.”

“Lucky me,” Maine says, smirking down at him.

 

 

Wash hasn’t been in an airport in _years_. Spaceports and hangars, sure, but nothing even remotely like this. The security check is short, almost brutally so, and they get quickly hustled into a waiting area unlike anything Wash remembers of civilian airports; open, bare, almost clinical.

Everything happens exactly as it’s been outlined in the dossier they’d been given. They wait for roughly twenty minutes, watching families milling around, and then the intercom announces their transport, their queueing area, the approximate wait time they have left.

Maine is nervous as they line up in their queueing area. Wash knows that it’s a two-way street as far as tells go and that it’s most likely not obvious to anyone else, but Maine is unnaturally relaxed, ironically enough, which is how Wash can tell that something’s gotten to him.

“Everything okay?” Wash says, and, figuring this is probably a good time for it, he gently touches Maine’s forearm.

Maine shrugs offhandedly in response and smiles, but his face is tight. Another announcement drones from the loudspeaker, tickets out, boarding will begin shortly, please prepare to board.

“Well, we’ve gotten this far,” Wash mutters, and Maine huffs out a quiet laugh.

Guards start walking along the line, counting heads, and Wash thinks he can hear the thrum of engines outside. The sooner they board, the better. Maine shifts next to him and then frowns, eyes flicking carefully between the guards, and then Wash notices that there’s some kind of commotion at the head of the line. He’s about to say something to Maine when–

“Listen up,” a guard booms from the head of the line, “we’re over-capacity for this flight to Rasst. Anyone whose ticket number is over 145, you’re on the transport to Marmur.”

Hushed mutters spread through the crowd.

“And from there?” someone calls out, voice angry. “What, we’ll just be _stranded?_ ”

“It’s not our business what you do,” snaps another guard. “You want to cross the Seyyal Sea, you’re crossing the Seyyal Sea.”

Maine’s ticket reads 98.

Wash looks down at his ticket. 152.

Maine throws a surreptitious glance over at the nearest guard before wrapping his hands around Wash’s biceps and pulling him aside, moving close.

“It’ll be fine,” Wash automatically says, even though there’s a 99% chance that’s a lie. He’s looked at maps. Marmur is just over a hundred klicks down the coast from Rasst, over a ridge of mountains. The chances of him traveling that far without reliable transport or long-range comms? That’s bleak.

“Won’t be,” says Maine, and a wry smile spreads across his face, missing his eyes by a mile. “Gonna stay in Rasst. Wait for… stuff to come. Wait for you.”

“I can make it to Rasst,” Wash says firmly. “If I have to steal a few cars, so be it.”

“Tickets out, let’s get _moving_ ,” barks a guard. “Don’t even _think_ about swapping tickets. Everything’s coded to your ID. _Move_ , people.”

Wash’s hand snaps out to mirror Maine’s grip on his biceps in a knee-jerk reaction that surprises himself, fingers digging into Maine’s arm like a vice. Wash feels a pit starting to yawn open in his chest, black and full of dread, and then there’s a moment where everything just _stops_ , like some great cosmic pause button’s been hit, and all that exists for Wash is Maine’s arm under his hand, Maine’s hand wrapped tightly around Wash’s arm, and there’s only one thought drowning out everything else: _please_ let this not be the last time he sees Maine.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to [e](http://archiveofourown.org/user/cel10e) for – as per usual – nuking my pronoun issues and helping me get this into shape.
> 
> Another huge thank you to everyone who’s read, bookmarked, and commented on this WiP – every comment has meant so much to me, you guys have no idea. I’ve been working on this for over two and a half years now, and in a lot of ways it’s the light at the end of an extraordinarily long and bad tunnel, so seriously, thank you for checking it out.
> 
> On a lighter note, this fic is clearly not clinging too hard to RvB canon, and that’s (mostly) because it was plotted between S11 and S12. It’s been sheer luck that a lot of things have ended up lining up really well for me. I’m leaning a lot on Halo canon for this because, well, I know a lot about Halo canon, and at least Halo canon is… internally consistent. (I love RvB, but. Ya know.) 
> 
> Final note(s): [headcanon faces](http://glassedplanets.tumblr.com/post/143140827563/speedpaint-round-two) and a shitload of fluff can be found on [ye olde artblog](http://glassedplanets.tumblr.com/tagged/S11-au). 
> 
> EDIT: I've also got [an extended notes-slash-headcanons post](https://basiacat.tumblr.com/post/150104451344/s11-au-headcanon-masterpost-plus-some) up that I'm updating as I remember things to add.


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